North Sea
by Punctuator
Summary: Sequel to 28DL, starting right where the original ends. Jim, Selena, and Hannah take a helicopter ride straight into a vortex of intrigue, fear, pursuit, and revenge, from West Yorkshire to the end of the world. Climb aboard!
1. Prologue

NORTH SEA

He hated helicopters.

He'd never flown in one before today, and if he had anything to say about it, he'd never fly in one again. He wasn't one for amusement park rides, even-- or perhaps especially-- the slow ones, like Ferris wheels or bumper cars. He'd never even seen London from the heights of the Eye.

He had control issues when it came to motion, as in he liked to be in control of his body in motion. Hence his love of running, of bicycling. Granted, the latter had led him to an appalling injury: a moment's hesitation on a messenger run, and the last thing he'd seen was the Sterling insignia on a dark bonnet, followed by a rushing closeup of a windscreen. He'd woken cold and alone, his head aching, his mouth dry, in a world new and terrible, not brave. A world of violence, nightmares, killing, and blood.

A world of helicopters.

This bloody helicopter, anyway, just the one, and the bloody idiot flying it. It bucked away from the croft that for a month they'd called home; it shuddered and hitched in the air. He found himself becoming hyper-attuned to the flaws of its motion. It dropped meters into a pressure pocket; his stomach dropped with it.

_Brave face, Jim, for Christ's sake._

He raised his eyes from the nubbled black floor of the jerking airbeast to look at the woman sitting across from him. He thought through his fear his usual thoughts on looking at her: how she was gorgeous in a wild sort of way, latte-extra-espresso-shot skin, eyes like melted brown sugar. Those eyes as always met his with fearless clarity. Selena matched and exceeded his smile.

She shouted, above the barking chop of the rotors: "You're hating this, aren't you?"

Jim nodded, unashamed. "I am," he shouted back.

Selena stood, swayed with the chopper's motion, crossed the cabin aisle to sit beside him. "I'm bloody loving it."

"Fuck off."

She laughed. "I love flying. Always have. It's the one bloody time I can think if something goes wrong, it's absolutely not my fault."

"That's very comforting."

She took his hand, held it in both of hers. On the passenger bench across from them just behind the cockpit, a teenage girl with ash-blonde hair, in cargo-pocketed trousers, a worn army surplus jacket, and a bill cap, was looking ostensibly forward and out, through the chopper's forward windscreen. Selena nodded toward her. "Hannah's not minding it."

"That's because Hannah's a bloody maniac. You've seen how she drives."

"Think she's jockeying for a better look at the maniac flying this thing."

That maniac was a big fellow, a massively big fellow, in a dark green flight suit dotted with insignias in yellow, white, blue, and red. He'd taken off his helmet for just a moment after he'd landed the chopper in the field behind the croft. He had with him a co-pilot of lesser size who kept his helmet on and stayed in his seat while Hannah and Selena and Jim got on board.

"Do you have any possessions?" the pilot asked. He spoke with what Jim thought was a Russian accent. His face was broad and handsome, his eyes a deep-sea blue, his hair black and close-cut.

"Just what we're wearin'," Jim replied, and even that was a lie: the clothing they wore they'd found in the croft and elsewhere. He glanced at the automatic holstered at the pilot's hip and wondered about the penalties for looting in this terrible new world, even if said looting were for necessities.

"Then we go. Quickly, yes?"

Selena boarded, but Hannah hesitated. She looked back at the whitewashed cottage, at the homely black London cab parked just outside.

"Do you think they'll-- that someone could-- I hate leavin' it, yeah?"

It had been her father's cab. Frank was dead, a victim of rifle-shot secondary to what they'd come to think of as the rage virus. Soldiers had killed him when Jim couldn't. He thought of it, and he looked at the cab with its headlamps looking at them like the eyes of a black lab, and his throat tightened.

"Maybe they'll send someone for it, yeah? They'll be checkin' the area." He put his hand on Hannah's shoulder. "Come on, Hannah."

After they'd boarded, he saw the pilot for just a moment, looking back at the croft.

Now, right now, the chopper dropped again, seemed to lock up in midair. The co-pilot shouted something back at them; Hannah re-shouted it at Jim and Selena, more clearly: "We're landing."

Landing, hell: it was bloody falling. The chopper dropped like a stone, possibly a hundred meters in roughly four seconds. Jim's stomach dropped a moment after the rest of him did.

"Christ Jesus--" he hissed.

"Almost there, sweetheart," said Selena, squeezing his fingers.

"Bloody ashamed, I am."

"Tell you about my fears someday, okay? Come on, we're nearly down."

He looked, as she and Hannah were looking, through the forward windscreen at a gray, drizzling day, the heavy green of trees, a cluster of buildings in deep brown, squared on a great field of tarmac within a high perimeter fence. The first drop had covered most of the distance between them and the ground; the next lowering gently set the helicopter's skids on the tarmac outside a domed hangar. Outbuildings and heavy military paraphernalia were all about: steel barrels and crates, loaders, a refueling station. Other choppers. Canvas-backed green trucks all in a row.

Their giant pilot spoke into his radio headset words they couldn't hear; he and his co-pilot flipped switches and toggled toggles, and the chopper's rotors whined and slowed. The pilot unfolded himself from his seat, came back into the cabin, and threw the pressure handle on the side door.

"They are sending a vehicle for you," he told them. He shoved at the door, slid it open. Jim took the short jump to the tarmac, nearly stumbled. His legs seemed to have become variable in length. Gratifyingly, Selena caught his arm when she landed next to him. Hannah, joining them, looked past the hangar and said, "Wicked."

A black Humvee was approaching them across the slick macadam field.

"Overkill, anyone?" Selena said quietly.

The squat rolling monster rumbled to a halt about ten meters away. Their pilot exchanged quick words with a tall, thin, balding man in a dark gray raincoat who alighted from the Humvee's front passenger side. The pilot nodded, saluted. He came back over to Jim, Selena, and Hannah.

"Mister McKeown will see to you now. Go with him, please."

He moved away, toward the hangar; Hannah stepped toward him. He stopped, looked down at her.

She looked up, well up, at him and smiled shyly. "Thanks, yeah?"

"You are welcome. Good luck, yes?"

"It's Hannah."

"Piotr. Good luck, Hannah."

He turned and walked off after his co-pilot. Hannah watched him go. Beside Jim, Selena smiled.

"I think we just witnessed a 'moment,'" she said quietly.

Jim frowned. "Hannah. Come along, yeah?"

She left off staring after their Russian pilot and came over. Mr. McKeown approached from the opposite side. He shook Jim's hand firmly.

"Welcome to Infinity Base," he said. He spoke with an American accent. "Charles McKeown, liaison, coordinated recovery services."


	2. Chapter 1

It was a fair distance to the base proper. Jim, Selena, and Hannah sat in the back seats of the black rolling behemoth; in the Humvee's front compartment, the man named Charles McKeown spoke quietly into a walkie-talkie. Logistical stuff, from what Jim could make out. Time of their arrival, their number and type, notify the base doctor, things like that.

Selena said: "I want a meal of food that didn't come from tins. Or from tins that I opened, anyway." She leaned forward, tapped Hannah's knee. "How about you, girl?"

Hannah slouched back on her seat. "I want a shower with the hot and cold on. Not a bath from water heated on the stove that I have t' share with two other people."

Jim grinned at her. "It's not like we were all in at the same time."

"You wish," Selena quipped, looking out the tinted side window.

"Gross." Hannah pulled a face.

Selena, chuckling, turned to Jim. "How about it, then, Jim? What do you want?"

He met her eyes, and his face went quiet. "Just t' know you're safe. You an' Hannah."

Hannah tugged at the visor of her cap. "Bo-ring."

"Oh, really?"

"Naw, it's sweet." With her eyes, Selena added: _Really. I mean it._ Out loud, she prompted: "There must be something else."

His eyes said, that clearly: _You. I want you._ He smiled. "A decent shave. With a fresh razor."

Charles McKeown said, "I'm sure we can manage that, Jim. We're here."

"Here" was a low building in chocolate-colored brick fronted with darkly tinted glass. It was built into a low hill capped with broken chunks of stone; from the air, Jim realized, they'd seen only the outbuildings. This structure would have been nearly invisible.

"Not standard military issue," Selena observed.

"No, it's not." McKeown climbed out and down; they followed. He led them down a concrete path toward dark glass doors. "Actually, under more normal circumstances, this is a petrochemical research facility."

"With its own air base."

McKeown smiled thinly. "Petroleum exploration and production calls for air support. Company practically has its own fleet."

"What company's that?" Jim asked.

"Western Star Oil and Gas. American-British co-venture."

"What's with the setting, then?" Selena gestured at the support walls extending back into the hill. "Expecting the Luftwaffe to take a pass?"

McKeown led them through automatic doors. "We're in West Yorkshire. A hotbed for ground-strike lightning. Company president is, umm, afraid of storms." He laughed drily. "And you did not hear me say that."

"Not the corporate HQ though, is it?"

McKeown gave Selena a look that as much as said, _You ask too many questions. _"No. But Mr. West has relatives in the area. Had. He had--" A frown flickered on his thin face. "Mr. West likes to feel secure when he visits."

"We're under military jurisdiction here?" Jim looked around. The place looked more corporate than military, and more American Southwest than Yorkshire. The lobby was appointed in reddish-gold sandstone and polished brass. A dark curved reception desk that would have looked right at home in a luxury hotel was directly ahead of them. Behind it sat a matched set of beefy young men in green and black fatigues, looking distinctly out of place.

"American military, yes." McKeown looked around. "Someone was supposed to-- Ah, Corporal Jeffries."

A trim young fellow in fatigues, ginger-haired and carrying a clipboard, approached from the right. "Mr. McKeown. How are you, sir?"

"Never better. Corporal, meet our guests." He stepped back, said to Jim, "I leave you in Mr. Jeffries' capable hands."

* * *

Their names and original addresses they gave to Corporal Jeffries, who smiled easily while he listened and made brief notes; when he finished, he tapped his pen on the top of the clipboard and led them back the way he'd come. The American Southwest glow gave way to an area of offices and conference rooms. Farther still, and they found themselves in a taupe hallway, which opened suddenly into a mess area spotted with women and other men, mostly young and mostly all in fatigues, eating at rectangular tables. 

"The fellas who work up front, they eat back here?" Jim asked.

"No, no." Jeffries grinned, showing white even American teeth. "Western Star personnel, guys passing through to the rigs up north, pilots, they stay here. Science guys down in the labs, too, they come up for pie and coffee. Cook makes a hell of a pecan pie. Through there--" He pointed to the right of the mess. "-- there's a TV lounge and a rec room. Couple old arcade games, pool. Magazines, some books. This way." He led them through a double-wide doorway. "Your quarters'll be down here." Another thirty meters or so, past a duty desk manned by the triplet of the twins in the reception area, and Jeffries stopped at the first open door in another taupe hall. "You first, Jim; then Hannah; then Selena. Standard kit and clothing." He drawled his ays, softened his rs; East Coast, Boston possibly, Jim guessed. Like the American Kennedys. "Give you time to shower and change, and then you're to see Doc Main. Quick checkover, then dinner. See if we can't find you some decent grub."

A plain room, not unlike a college dorm. Dresser, small square mirror, digital clock. Single frame bed with a wool green coverlet. On the coverlet, neatly folded clothing in approximately Jim's size: olive army trousers, a dark gray cotton blend sweater, black socks, boxers. A plastic box of toiletries: soap, a safety razor, shaving cream, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss.

Jeffries led Hannah and Selena away; left by himself, Jim stripped in the room's tiny bathroom. The shower was a shock, marvelous, stinging, hot. He lingered, lathered his hair twice with green shampoo, nearly dozed in the warm spray. He wrapped a towel around his waist, swept steam from the mirror with the side of his hand, shaved.

Hannah and Selena, dressed like him in gray and green, were waiting for Jim in the hall with dampish hair and their clipboard-toting guide.

"Corporal Jeffries thought you might have fallen asleep," Selena said.

"Nearly did." Jim smiled. "Time for the doctor, then?"

Jeffries nodded amiably. "Right this way."

He led them along the back of the mess-- all roads leading to Rome, thought Jim-- to an adjoining hallway, wide and well lit. As they walked, Selena squeezed Jim's hand; he tipped his head toward her.

"Clean up nice, you do," she said softly.

"Mm." He smiled, catching her scent, warm, soap-tinted.

They stopped with Jeffries outside an open door flanked by steel-framed chairs. "Hey, Doc!" he called.

From inside, a woman's voice, husky and rough. "Hey yourself, Red. What can I do ya for?" The woman herself appeared in the doorway a moment later. She was of average height, middle-aged, solidly built. She wore a doctor's white coat, and her coarse auburn hair was pulled back in a bun. She would look not at all out of place, thought Jim, in an old American western, clattering a steel triangle and yelling, "Come and get it!"

She looked at them over the tops of half-glasses anchored to a black lanyard around her neck. "These them?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Could be worse. Okay, kids: who's first?"

Hannah shuffled her feet, raised her hand at the elbow. "I'll go."

"Aw, come on, honey, it ain't a root canal. Come on in." She glared good-naturedly at Jeffries as Hannah passed her in the doorway. "You even tell these folks my name, Red? Betcha didn't. Have her out in a jif," she said to Jim and Selena, and shut the door.

They hadn't seen other people in over a month; Jim felt like he'd met someone's entire extended family in the last forty-five seconds. He looked at Selena, smiled at her smile. Jeffries checked his watch. "You visit with Doc; I'll swing back in about forty-five minutes."

Jim and Selena seated themselves side by side, tipped their heads against the wall. Hannah did emerge, as promised, in the proverbial jif, relaxed and unharmed. Selena went next. Hannah took a chair on the other side of the door from Jim.

"She's well okay," she said. "Says she's from Kansas."

"Sure as hell not in Kansas any more, is she?"

Hannah leaned forward, grinned over at him. "That's what she said. You listenin' or what?"

Selena re-emerged, looking wry, about a quarter-hour later. "You're up, cowboy," she said to Jim. He pushed up out of his chair. Dr. Main was seated at a low laminate desk, writing in ballpoint on a multi-lined form, when he entered. She glanced at him over her glasses, pointed with her pen at a paper-topped exam table. "Have a seat."

Jim boosted himself onto the table, sat, legs swinging. He glanced around the examination room. Usual complement of cut-away anatomy charts, muscles striated in red, veins in blue, surprised exposed eyeballs. Jars of cotton balls, swabs, pads. A brown bottle marked "Alcohol." It felt very ordinary, distinctly civilian. He looked back at Dr. Main where she sat on a swivel chair, writing.

"You're not military, are yeh?" he said.

"Nope. Usually I'm a shack doc. Way up north, on a drilling platform. Just on loan here. Oil demand in the U.K. drops off by about ninety percent overnight, rig goes on standby, an' they need medical personnel down south, so here I am. You want to take your sweater off, please."

"Ah-- right." Jim pulled off the sweater, flinched in the cool air.

Dr. Main finished writing, stood and turned. "Well, let's-- Good grief." She peered at the scar on Jim's torso. "You were shot."

"That's a good guess."

"Oh, smartass, huh? Let's have a look at that." She placed a hand on Jim's shoulder. "Lie back, honey."

Jim lay back on the crinkly paper covering the table padding, scootched to place his head on the thin pillow on the end opposite his feet. Dr. Main felt around his wound. Her fingers were warm and rough. She pressed, paused, moved her fingers, pressed again. "That hurt?"

"No."

"How about there?"

"No."

"Wound looks clean. No discoloration. No swelling. How long ago did it happen?"

"About a month. Five weeks, maybe."

"How'd you manage it?"

"Hm?"

"Surviving. Injury like that should have killed you. Should have left you full of sepsis at the very least. Ain't a through-and-through, so my guess is that the bullet hit the costal cartilage and lodged near the eighth rib. Without ripping the stomach sac. That's a damn miracle. Muscle and rib absorbed the shock. Who got the slug out?"

"Selena."

"Makes her a double hell of a gal. Not every fella's got a girl could do something like that."

"She's, umm, not exactly my girl."

"She ought to be, then. Knack for abdominal surgery: that's a step above being able t' darn socks, ain't it?" She jotted notes. "You can sit up now. Any other tragedies you survived on a whim?"

"I, uh--" Jim sat up, rubbed his head where he'd been trepanned. "Just this."

"Just--" Dr. Main moved his hand, replaced it with hers, peered through her half-glasses. "Jesus, Mary, an' Joseph. Master of understatement, aren't ya? How the hell long were you out?"

"Days-- Weeks, maybe. I'm not exactly sure."

"Hell." She felt around his skull. "They teach you any Dickinson with your Dickens, Jim? In school?"

He smiled. "Excuse me?"

"There's one comes t' mind. Emily Dickinson." She turned to a wall rack, selected a scope, fitted it with a rigid black plastic cone. "'My life closed twice before its close.'" She turned back, gazed through the cone into Jim's right ear. "'It yet remains t' see--'" She moved around the table, scoped his left ear. "'--if immortality unveil a third event t' me.'" She set the scope aside, pressed fingers up under his jaw. "'So huge, so helpless t' conceive/As these that twice befell.' Open up. Lemme see your throat." Jim opened his mouth wide; she looked. To his tonsils, she said, "'Partin' is all we know of heaven/An' all we need of hell.' Looks good. You can close."

"That's nice," he said.

"Hope so. It's the only damn poem I know. 'Bout the only one anyone'd need, I figure. You're a darn lucky fella, you know that?"

"Yeah, I know."

"Good boy. Just need t' listen to your heart an' lungs, draw a little blood, an' we'll be done. Not afraid of needles, are ya?"

He wasn't; a tiny jab in his arm, an ampule of warm deep red capped with a green stopper. Doc Main labeled the tube while Jim put his sweater back on. Jeffries returned just as he emerged. "They gonna survive, Doc?"

"Should hope so. Them two gals, they're healthy as horses. An' this one--" She smacked Jim's shoulder, smiling broadly. "-- he's too dumb t' die. Get some food in him, though. Kid's all bones."

* * *

The mess had largely cleared out when they got back. Obviously, dinner was pretty much over; a digital chronometer above the main entrance read 19:41. They followed Jeffries to the end of the serving line. He leaned over the stainless steel counter, called back through the kitchen entrance: "Hey, Wally! Front!" 

"Front yourself, Red. We're closed!" From the kitchen swaggered the man who had to be Wally, wiping his hands on a white towel. He looked not unlike a straightened gorilla in a heavy apron.

"Corporal Wallace, these people are in need of food."

Wallace smiled from his lower jaw out and looked at them with tiny devilish eyes. "That a fact?"

"Feed 'em right. They're refugees." Jeffries patted Hannah's shoulder. "Leave you to it, then. Enjoy your dinner. Need anything later, I'm at the duty desk 'til twenty-two hundred hours. Have a good night."

He walked off. Wallace focused on Jim. "What'll ya have, kid?"

"What yeh got?"

"Got your choice. Beans, stewed tomatoes, and toast, 'cause we've been told you Brits like that kinda crap, or--"

"Let's hear the 'or.'"

"Steak cooked to order, green beens, salad, toast, cake, and fruit."

"I don't know--" Jim frowned thoughtfully, half-turned to Selena and Hannah. "The first one's right tempting--"

Hannah punched him in the arm, hard, and smiled sweetly at Wallace. "I'll have my steak well-done, please."

They settled themselves with beverages at one of the rectangular tables. Corporal Wallace whistled sharply when their food was up, loaded on compartmented steel trays. On seeing the sheer tonnage of edibles, Jim found himself thinking the U.S. Army the provence of gargantuans; he nearly looked around for the other three to six people who had to be joining them, to eat all of it. Then the scent of steak went from his nose to his stomach and echoed in the emptiness it found there, and before he knew how it had happened his tray was nearly cleaned out. The same thing happened to Selena and Hannah. They glanced at each other in satisfied shock, exchanged magnificent unabashed belches, laughed. They slowed for dessert; at the drinks station, Jim re-filled his mug and Selena's with a hot brown liquid that did a more than passing impersonation of decent coffee. Hannah tucked into a moist wedge of blackish-brown chocolate cake. Jim alternated between his own cake and the night's fruit: fresh strawberries, washed but still wearing their green tops. Selena's loyalty was solely to the berries. She looked just short of ecstatic.

"Taste these. Just taste these-- Good God, I've died and gone to heaven."

Jim grinned. "Don't know what's better: eatin' 'em, or watchin' you eat 'em."

Selena smiled slyly, flicked a stem at him. Hannah winced.

"Get a room, you two, yeah?"

"Hey." Jim sipped his coffee. Then he set his mug on the table, looking past her shoulder. "Look-- It's Piotr."

Hannah went deep red. "It is not."

"No, really--" Jim waved. Hannah looked-- and there he was, large as life, six rectangular tables away, a white mug in his hand. His co-pilot sat with him, his helmet now off. He was fair-haired, brush-cut. Piotr returned Jim's wave, rose, and came over, mug in hand. Hannah returned her eyes to her cake, her red going even deeper.

"Hello," Piotr said.

"Hi," said Selena, smiling. "Weren't properly introduced before, were we?" She offered Piotr her hand, shook his. "Selena."

"Piotr. Is good to know you, Selena."

"Hello, Piotr," said Jim, a moment later, receiving a firm shake of his own. "I'm Jim."

"Jim." Piotr smiled. He was younger, Jim realized, than he'd first appeared, the heroic giant at the croft. He was still gigantic, but he couldn't be much beyond twenty. The Russians-- the Danes, by the red flag patch on his uniform-- had to be recruiting young if kids his age were flying their own birds. He looked down at Hannah politely, expectantly. She looked up.

"'lo," she mumbled.

"Hello."

Something of desperate importance pulled Hannah's eyes back to her cake. A moment of silence followed: a teaspoonful of it would have weighed many tons.

Jim cleared his throat. "You stationed here?" he asked the big Russian.

"No. Repairs only. Frustrating: we lack parts. Breaking to coffee, yes?"

"Sure. Care t' sit down?"

Hannah shriveled in her chair. Piotr glanced at her, smiled. He said to Jim, "No. I thank you. Andrej is wanting to return to work." He glanced back at his co-pilot. "We stop only so he is not so crazy to smash things."

"I understand."

Piotr looked again, briefly, at Hannah. Then he said to Jim: "You are feeling better?"

"Pardon--?"

"You were looking most green when we landed."

Jim looked blank. Hannah smirked through her blush. Piotr said, "Is good. Excuse me, yes?"

He ambled off. Jim drank his coffee and avoided their eyes.

"Think you got got," Selena said.

Hannah smugly forked up the rest of her cake, pushed back from the table. "I'm gonna check out the game room. Laters."

"Later, Hannah." He had to stop himself from adding, "Be careful." Selena was looking at Hannah thoughtfully, and he knew: she was thinking it, too. After the girl had gone, she paused a moment, sipping at her coffee and watching the tabletop. Then she raised her eyes and sat for a sweet extended minute, simply looking at him. Jim sat simply looking back at her. More than hot water, chocolate cake, clean clothes, electricity even: a glorious luxury, looking. _We're safe,_ he thought. _She's safe. Hannah's safe. Thank you, God._ He leaned back in his chair, comfortable and full, and rested his fingertips at the table's steel edge.

"Funny, isn't it?" Selena glanced at the wall chronometer. It was now half eight. "My internal clock's all messed up. Think I got used to it, going to sleep when the sun goes down. I'm sitting here, and I'm bloody exhausted." She stood. "Think I'm for bed. How about you?"

Every atom in his body shouted YES. "Umm." Jim swallowed, gazing up at her. He warded off a stammer. "Thought I'd stay up a bit, look at the telly."

"You know what'll happen, don't you?" Selena reached over, ruffled the hair away from his right temple. "Even now, the blood from your brain is heading south to your stomach to do battle with that steak. You'll be asleep in, oh, fifteen minutes."

Jim smiled. "Twenty, and it's a bet."

"You're on." She pressed her lips to his forehead, tenderly. "Goodnight, Jim."

"'Night, darlin'."

A flatscreen television hung from the ceiling in the lounge. Jim settled himself in the cushions of a stuffed chair and watched. CNN. A semi-hyper parade of images, announcers with American accents, headlines, sub-headings, graphics. Today's top stories: British armageddon. World economy continues to take a hit as banking, insurance, etc. An international coalition heads the effort to bring order to England and Scotland. A bid for colonization from-- Hong Kong! Jim grinned at that, sleepily. It all seemed unreal, the images alien. The CNN cycle churned on; Selena won the bet; he dozed. Just before he went under, a map showing the locations of relief stations in the British Isles flashed on the screen. His last thought before he slept was _Why didn't they take us to Leeds...?_

He woke abruptly, blinked, shook his head. He looked again at the TV; the CNN cycle had re-started. Hong Kong was claiming England as its colonial property, turnabout and all that. Jim yawned, stretched, got up. Time for bed, yeah. Before he left the lounge, he reached up and poked the channel button at the base of the TV. He found nothing on the other channels but eerie static.

The lights were lower now in the mess. In the dorm hall, he passed his room. He stopped outside Selena's room, raised his hand, paused with his knuckles on the door. No. She was tired; she wanted to sleep. At the croft, they'd shared a bed almost every night. Not like that, no: he'd been savagely wounded, and she'd stayed with him in case he needed anything in the night. That had been the first argument waylaying strenuous intimacy; the second had been a complete lack of protection, both in their humble adopted abode and anywhere else they'd managed to range, scavenging. Not that it had been tops on their supplies list-- see the claim of savage wounding above, and his legitimate need to heal-- but he'd come to wonder, in their last few days in the glens, what the denizens of Cumbria did for recreation. He was nearly certain of something they _didn't_ do; Selena had been more blunt: "Would be our luck, taking refuge in an orgy-free zone."

In the dim light of the hall, Jim lowered his hand without knocking. No doubt she'd welcome a night alone, without his rangy carcass hogging the bed and the blankets. He made his way to his room, pulled off his sweater, clambered under the sheets and green coverlet. His sleep was deep and heavy. He woke only once, at the sound of a helicopter in the distance; he wondered muzzily if Piotr and his co-pilot had found their parts and gone on their way. He kneaded his pillow, rolled onto his side, wondered again, _Why didn't they take us to Leeds?_

He slept.


	3. Chapter 2

Morning. The sun cast pinkish-gold light beneath the ceiling of clouds. John Isaacs looked at the Earth's private star through the window of the Bell. In minutes, the sun would rise higher, or the Earth would turn its shoulder, and they'd be on nothing but gray daylight and sputtering rain. They were nearly to Infinity. Isaacs, Thomas West, four men who called themselves scientists, four others. It was six forty-five.

"Hey, Isaacs, you got a crucifix there? You praying?"

Isaacs turned toward the man who'd asked, Burns, one of the "others." One of Tom West's advisors or one of Isaacs' leg men, depending on who wanted to know. Not a big guy, but solid. Dependable. "Not quite," Isaacs said. He held the object up so that it caught the sunshine through the helicopter's oval windows. It was a thin tube about three inches long, transparent, filled with a deep red liquid and hanging from a silver chain.

"What's-- Is that blood?"

"Yep."

"You datin' Angelina Jolie or what?"

"Gal who gave me this'd make Angelina Jolie look like a puddy tat."

Burns chuckled. "Sick-- You're a sick bastard, you know that?"

Isaacs nodded, smiled. "Blood is the life, man. Keep it close to my heart, keep it warm." He winked at Burns, tucked the phial under his shirt, next to his skin.

* * *

Morning. This time it was definite: a helicopter, approaching. 

"Selena, d' you hear--?"

Jim spoke before he was fully awake. He opened his eyes, rolled onto his back, found himself looking up at a ceiling that wasn't timbered and roughly plastered. He found himself alone as well. The bedspace beside him was cool and empty.

"Right." He sat forward, pushing sleepy air out of his lungs. The clock on the nightstand read 6:50. The sun'd be getting up; he should be up then, too. He was nearly on his feet when someone rapped at the door.

"Hold on--"

He pulled on his sweater, padded over barefoot. A soldier waited on the other side of the door. He had a rifle slung on his shoulder by a leather strap, and he carried a metal dining tray.

"Breakfast, sir," he said. He looked like one of those Army ads at the back of an American comic book. One of the "of-ones," jaw of stone and all. His voice was as expressionless as his face.

"Where's Red, then--?" Jim asked amiably, looking past him into the hall.

"Your breakfast, sir." The soldier pushed the tray at him. "Let me know when you're through."

It wasn't a relative of the previous night's dinner, and that was a fact. Oat porridge, dry toast, two plastic packets of grape jam, black coffee. Behind his closed door Jim ate, finished, cleaned himself up a bit, an odd cold feeling building in his chest. He opened the door. His soldier was right outside. He'd unslung his rifle; now he didn't quite bring it to bear on Jim.

_Ah, Christ--_

"Ready, sir?"

Jim swallowed, looking at the barrel of the gun. "My friends-- The two ladies I came with. Hannah and Selena. Where are--"

"This way, sir."

Jim went where the rifle barrel told him. He saw no one he knew when he left his room; very few people were about. Another pair of bullish soldiers were at the duty desk. He and his soldier traveled the taupe hall to a set of lifts; they rode downward three floors; they exited into a hall of powder gray. Jim preceded the rifle barrel to a metal door with a small glass window reinforced with mesh. On the wall beside the door was stenciled the phrase Isolation Lab 1. Jim felt his breath shorten.

"What th' fuck is goin' on--?"

"Debriefing, sir. In here, please."

If it was or had been a lab, it had been stripped of anything characteristically scientific. No beakers, no flasks, no Bunsen burners, no cluttered black workbenches. Just a metal table and two metal chairs. Jim entered, and the soldier closed the door behind him. He heard a bolt click to between the door and the wall.

He waited. There was a clock, at least, high up on the wall. Jim stayed on his feet; he waited. The clock's black hands semaphored from seven-forty-five to nine-fifteen. He began to watch the door; he kept his knees unlocked. _What in the hell had they been led into--?_

A knock. Jim started. The door opened slightly; a man's voice called cheerfully: "Hey, you decent in there--?"

Jim said nothing. The owner of the voice entered. Tall fellow, strongly built, dark business suit, silk tie in purples. Receding dark hairline over a hangdog face, blue eyes under heavy lids. He grinned at Jim.

"I am sorry-- I am sorry as hell to keep you waiting." Another American. He spoke with a drawl. "Few last-minute things to see to upstairs. Couple of transfers, paperwork, you know the drill." He was carrying a briefcase. He swung it onto the table, opened it, took out a micro-recorder and a yellow legal pad. He plucked a pen from the inner pocket of his suit jacket, set it next to the pad on the table. He turned to Jim, stuck out his right hand. "John Isaacs."

"Jim--" Jim shook the man's hand. He was feeling numb. "What's going on here?"

"I'm your lawyer, Jim. Have a seat." He angled the tiny recorder, pushed a button on its case. A red light like an eye lit on its side.

Jim sat, the numbness spreading across his shoulders and chest. "Why do I need a lawyer?"

"Well, that's--" Isaacs grinned, sat opposite him. "That's, uh, pretty obvious, isn't it?"

"I think--" Jim's eyes stung. _Where were Selena and Hannah?_ "I think I don't know."

"You've killed a whole hell of a lot of people, haven't you, Jim?"

_Oh, fuck._ Jim rubbed at the scar on his scalp. His hand was shaking. "Where are my friends?"

"The ladies are with lawyers of their own."

"You're not British--"

"Hell, I should hope not. British bar's running a little low on manpower right about now. ABA's kindly offered to help out."

"The relief people-- The Americans-- They're sendin' bloody _lawyers_--?"

"Well--yeah." Isaacs blinked in hangdog offense. "Buddy. Hell. Jim-- I wouldn't argue it if I were you. You do not want to be stuck with some military yutz, not with what you're looking at--"

"An' what the fuck is that?"

"Short form, Jim? You're going to be tried for murder. With luck, we can plead it down to justifiable homicide, maybe even manslaughter. If not, you're gonna hang. So let's start, okay? How many people did you kill?"

* * *

Morning. In a hangar whose size was suited better for cargo jets than helicopters, at least to a helicopter pilot's way of thinking, Piotr shouted up at the curses raining down from the top of his chopper-- his, not the loaner he'd been flying yesterday: "Andrej--!" 

The curses stopped; tool metal clattered on the chopper's roof. Andrej, his face locked in a scowl, looked down. "What?"

"I am going over to the main building. Find us alternate transport, get us something for breakfast."

"You are going to find that girl."

Piotr smiled. "I will find us transportation."

"Too young--"

"Stop beating the turbine. I will be back soon."

He set off for the hangar's front doors. Behind him, Andrej had resumed his acidic litany atop the Super Lynx. International cooperation at its most efficient: they were still short of parts, the shipment truck not having come from Leeds, and the American mechanics working for Western Star refused to work on a chopper that not only was not one of their clumsy Bell workhorses but was, in their unbiased eyes, Russian property, Denmark and Russia being-- of course!-- interchangeable. At least they hadn't locked Piotr and Andrej out of the mess, too.

He crossed the distance between the hangar and the low mechanics' building. The American army was running a shuttle on twenty-minute intervals between the main gates, the air buildings, and the main building of the complex. He was in luck; the green drab bus was just pulling up as he approached the mechanics' shed. He boarded with two men in grease-stained coveralls.

Another day of rain. They approached the motor pool; two men in black waterproof jackets and two men in fatigues were standing next to a small troop transport vehicle, talking. The bus stopped; the men in the waterproof jackets boarded, seated themselves at the front of the bus. They drove on; the next stop was the main building, the secondary entrance on the east side. The workingmen's doors, not the portal of sandstone beauty reserved for special guests and those of capitalist importance. Inside, Piotr found his way to the area the American army had established as a communications center; he contacted his co-ordinating officer at the base at Leeds, requested transportation for himself and Andrej and their sick Lynx. Half a day at least before Leeds could spare a truck with a tow platform. He spoke his thanks, signed off. Andrej would go from anger to rage.

At least they'd be fed. Piotr made for the mess; en route, he stopped at the duty desk near the dorm halls.

"Excuse me."

One of the men at the duty desk was speaking with a red-headed American corporal, who seemed to be detailing a handover of duties following a pending transfer; the other looked up at Piotr with unfriendly close-set eyes.

"Sir?"

"I am looking for someone-- a young woman. A teenager. Blonde hair. She arrived here yesterday with two friends."

"Civilians, sir?"

"Yes. My co-pilot and I landed them here."

"No one by that description bunking here at this time, sir."

Piotr's shoulders tensed. "I am-- I do not understand--"

The desk officer looked ready to rise. He was armed, of course; his rifle seemed suddenly uncomfortably near at hand. "We have no one by that--"

"Wait." The red-headed corporal broke from his conversation with the second desk man. "You're looking for Hannah, aren't you?" he said to Piotr.

"I, uh-- Yes. Yes, sir."

The corporal looked at him assessingly, his ginger brows approaching one another over sharp blue eyes. "Danish navy, are you?"

"Yes, sir. Piotr Kalinovich, seconded to the army command at Leeds. Awaiting transportation with my co-pilot and our-- grounded helicopter, sir."

The word he'd been thinking was one of Andrej's, one several degrees warmer than "grounded." The corporal smiled briefly. "Room 116, last time I checked." He frowned at the man who'd claimed ignorance. "She's off for debriefing now, but she and her friends-- they should be back in the common areas by fourteen hundred hours, at the latest."

"Thank you, sir."

Piotr left the desk; some ten meters on, he passed a man in a dark business suit who stood looking back the way Piotr had come. He found himself disliking the fellow's expression-- cold and focused and flat; he silently chided himself for mistrust. But the tension remained in his shoulders; he paused, turned back, saw the man speaking into a walkie-talkie.

The man turned, still speaking, and looked right at him. Piotr's jaw clenched. He swallowed, moved on. Not paranoia, no. Something untoward was happening. Something that involved Hannah, Selena, airsick Jim. He suspected, with a tight feeling deep in his gut, that their rescue had been nothing of the kind.

And he'd brought them here.

* * *

_You're a fella, you're not supposed t' cry._

How could things go arse-up so bloody quickly? They'd survived; they were out of danger; they were safe. And saved. A bloody helicopter came for them, didn't it? The world outside, beyond England, had gone on, as safely and soundly as the modern world ever went. The helicopter came-- they'd laid out a bloody invite for it, hadn't they, in letters four meters tall-- and a pilot looking for all the world like Dan Dare had flown them--

Here.

The pilot. Piotr. Flown them right to hell, hadn't he? Bloody hell. Bloody fucking Russian--

"Jim."

Jim blinked, looked up. "Yeah, I-- Uh, yeah. What was the question?"

The man called John Isaacs looked at him benevolently. "You need a break, Jim? We can take a break."

"No."

"Good. Okay. So we're in Manchester-- you're in Manchester, you and the girls, and you hook up with a band of British soldiers under the command of one Major Henry West. They're holed up in some big old mansion. You with me, Jim?"

"How-- how do you know this?"

"Military, Jim. Military procedure. Major West, he kept a journal, didn't he? All the boring daily details, all the comings and goings. You're right there in print, the three of you. You turn up one day; Major West and his guys, they take you in. And the day after that-- pfft!" Isaacs opened his palms. "So come on, Jim, tell me: what happened there in Manchester?"

Jim fought to keep his jaw steady. "I'm not tellin' you fuck-all."

"Uh. Okay." Isaacs' brows rose; he settled back in his metal chair, tapping with his pen-tip on the legal pad. "Okay. How about one? Mitchell."

"Who--?"

"Guy they found-- Maybe I better explain. About two weeks ago, an inspection team enters that big old mansion in Manchester. Find a hell of a mess, yeah-- they expect that-- holy hell of a stink, too. But it's military, right? So they can't just shovel up the bodies and pack 'em off to a fire pit somewhere. They gotta inspect. Sad fact of death, Jim: John and Jane Q. Public, plague hits, and they're a pile of ashes in a damn hole dug with a bulldozer. You put uniforms on John and Jane Q., though-- you add those uniforms, and it's private body bags, cozy drawers in a mortuary, the whole nine yards.

"So this team, they go on in, and they're looking, and what they're seeing doesn't look entirely plague related. See, Jim, it's pretty easy to tell who got mauled by the infected. This guy, Mitchell, he wasn't mauled. Marvels of forensic science, yeah? He's laid out on this bed upstairs, almost like he's takin' a nap, and the forensic guys, they know the infected don't leave anyone napping, right? They take him back to the lab, get a better look, and what they find is this-- and this is their wording, not mine: 'an almost methodical breaking of his facial bones'-- almost like someone took a Mike Tyson jackhammer to his puss. And here's the kicker: backs of his eye sockets were broken out. Kinda like someone lobotomized him with their thumbs. Grabbed onto his head, just latched on like a vise, and 'pop.' Coroner said it was savage, man. Methodical and savage." He paused. His eyes could see-- Jim could feel it-- his eyes could see right into Jim's skull. "You gonna be sick, Jim? You need a bucket?"

"No."

"Okay, then. Okay. Come on, buddy. Tell me what happened to Mitchell."

Jim was sitting outside himself. His body was made of lead; his voice was quiet and stable. "We had t' get out of there."

"Why was that, Jim? They were soldiers; couldn't they protect you?"

"They tried t' kill me."

"Why would they do that, Jim?"

"'Cause they wanted th' girls. Selena an' Hannah. They wanted to, uh-- They wanted--"

"What, buddy?"

"West was givin' 'em to his men to-- Ah, fuck--" Jim swallowed around a knot aching in his throat. "We had t' get out of there. T' place was crawlin' with infected. They were all over t' house--"

"Jim: shh. Come on. West was gonna let his guys rape Selena and Hannah: that's what you're telling me?"

Jim looked at him. "Sounds crazy, don't it? I know it does. Sounds right insane. I mean, we thought they'd-- what you said: they're soldiers, yeah? They ought t' protect us."

"Life during wartime, man. Sometimes it gets ugly; sometimes it gets uglier than that. So Mitchell, he--"

"He had Selena."

"'Had.'"

"Yeah. He-- he was gonna-- She was okay, yeah? She was still okay, but he had her, an' we had to--" Jim stopped; his voice hitched in his throat; he pushed fingers tearing-hard into the hair above his left temple. He felt it: the shock of Mitchell's back hitting the wall, the impact of the blows jolting up his own right arm, warm liquid thick as gelatine collapsing and edges sharp and cracking against his thumb-tips as Mitchell shrieked beneath him. "I don't know what happened. I started hittin' 'im. We had t' get out of there, yeah--? I never-- I woulda never killed anyone."

Isaacs cleared his throat softly. "I believe you, Jim. I do. We got one more, then we can take a break, okay? One more, okay?"

Jim pulled the heel of his right hand up his face, caught an eyeful of tears. "Right. Okay."

"West. Major West. You know what happened to him?"

"I, uh--"

Something beeped under Isaacs' side of the table. "Hold on, Jim." Isaacs leaned back, pulled from his jacket pocket a black and red handset, raised it to his mouth. "Isaacs."

_John--_ A man's voice in a pocket of hiss. _We've got an end here--_

Isaacs shook his head. "You want to speak English, Burns. I'm with my client."

_One of the rescue pilots, Russian guy, he was just here looking for the girl._

"Hannah? You don't say. He still there?"

_Think he's stopping off in the mess._

"Okay. That's cool. Sit tight; I'll be right up. Isaacs out." Isaacs slipped the handset back into his pocket, got up. He smiled at Jim. "No rest for the wicked, huh? I'm lead counsel for you guys; I gotta go see what this flyboy wants. Relax. I'll have 'em bring you a Sprite, cup of tea or something. Be right back, okay? You're doing great."

He patted Jim's shoulder, left the lab. The door-bolt clicked to behind him.

* * *

"Anyone else think we ain't gonna make it to Leeds?" 

From his bouncing perch in the rear of the transport truck, Corporal Jeffries fixed Corporal Wallace with half a smile, half a frown. "What do you mean, we ain't gonna make it to Leeds? These roads've been clear for weeks."

Wallace leaned forward, parked his elbows on his gristly knees, glanced out the truck's open back end at the sodden green rolling West Yorkshire they were leaving behind. "I mean, as in I ain't never seen either of those guys drivin' this thing, ain't never seen 'em in the chow line. As in, they transfer the three of us just like that. As in, they're sending all our gear along after us."

"As in, you're paranoid."

"I'm stationed in a country that just went through a zombie plague. I think I'm entitled."

"I believe ya," said Dr. Main. She sat forward, trying to keep her head from knocking against the supports holding up the truck's canvas topper. Twenty years with Western Star, and before today she'd never once been shipped anywhere in a damn open-backed army truck. Two hours ago she'd been eating a steep stack of late-breakfast flapjacks and going over the results of the tests on the blood she'd pulled out of those three kids; one hour ago she'd been told she was being transferred to Leeds. She wasn't even sure if the company could do that, legally or legitimately. Wally and Red, they were enlisted men: they had to go where the guys with more bars on their sleeves told 'em to go. But she was a civvie. Riding in a bucking chopper en route to the North Sea was one thing. Being packed onto a glorified cow truck without even a suitcase holding her skivvies and her toothbrush: now, that was something entirely other. A big damn spooky other.

"Thanks, Doc," said Wally.

"I think you're nuts," Red countered. He looked from Main to Wallace. "You want to run it? Ten bucks says you're nuts."

"I ain't bettin' on this. These guys are up t' no good."

They were all elbows-on-knees now, leaning closer to each other. Red asked: "So what do we do?"

"This thing stops-- and it's gonna stop-- Doc, could you fake a heart attack?"

"Ain't that kinda corny?"

"Could you do it?"

"Yeah, I could do it."

"Truck stops, you fake it. We'll be right behind ya."

* * *

One of the advantages of working for The Oil Man: a company car. No damn olive-primer bus for Mama Isaacs' little boy, nosirree: you just get on the shiny black horn in the front lobby and SHAZAM! a pretty blue Subaru, yours for the toodlin', pulls up at the main doors. 

The motor pool driver got out; Isaacs got in. He adjusted the mirrors, smoothed his hair, didn't buckle up. Straight-shot drive, just under half a mile, across the shiny tarmac to the hangar where the helicopters lived. Damn Russians. Calling themselves Danish, Swedish, Scandinavian, whatever, sneaky damn bastards. He parked outside the hangar's main doors, the ones big as drive-in theater screens tipped on their sides, and walked on in.

Wasn't hard to find the Russkies' bird. It was the one dark blue Super Lynx in a flock of Western Star Bell 212s and 214s. It was also the only bird with a Russkie on top of it, cussing at an exposed turbine. Isaacs walked over to the Lynx. On the way, he passed a red tool chest; he stopped, found himself a good-sized wrench, wrapped the top of it in a good-sized piece of rag. He held the wrench in line with his right arm, out of sight, continued on.

At the base of the maintenance ladder parked at the Lynx, he yelled up: "Hey, there!"

The cussing stopped; a "What--?" replaced it. A guy with a square head and a blonde Russkie buzzcut looked down from the helicopter's top. "Who are you?"

"John Isaacs, Western Star maintenance. Heard you're short of parts for this thing."

"Damn well about time." The Russkie stepped onto the ladder, climbed down. "Did Pilot Kalinovich send you over--? Where is he--?"

"Think he's gettin' you some chow. Here, I got a manifest for ya--"

"Thank you--" The pilot who wasn't Pilot Kalinovich stepped off the ladder. He turned to Isaacs.

The wrench caught him cleanly in the side of the head. The pilot took one stumbling step and collapsed. With his foot, Isaacs prodded him flat on his back. He knelt beside him, watching him carefully, calmly. Out, not dead. Good. Isaacs set down the wrench. Then he lifted the silver chain over his head, gently pulled the slender glass phial from its resting place against his chest.

"Y' know what they say." He grasped the pilot's jaw, squeezed until the man's lips parted. Then he uncapped the phial, tipped it, let a single thick red drop fall into the pilot's mouth. "Just a dab'll do ya. Sleep tight, buddy."


	4. Chapter 3

Lord, she hated it when big dumb guys were right. Especially when they were right about being taken to the middle of nowhere by fellas up to no good. She particularly hated that.

The truck stopped.

"You're up, Annie," Wallace said quietly.

She shook all the way to her bones. Up front, doors slammed. Boot soles hit pavement. If her heart pounded any harder, she wouldn't have to fake a thing. She tried not to look fearful; hell, she tried not to tip over. One of the two goons from up front appeared at the truck's back gate.

"We there already?" Wally asked.

The goon didn't look at him. "Got engine trouble. You need to get out."

"Okay." Wally unfolded himself from his spot on the bench, looked over at Main. "Ladies first."

"Thanks, Wally." She stood, and her knees wobbled. The goon unlatched the gate, swung it open. Main gasped, doubled over, and fell on him.

It was a considerable jump from the back of the truck to the road, even for a gal not her age; it was an even bigger jump when you were likely to land square on either your damn head or a bullet. Main closed her eyes to the cartwheeling world. She felt her goon stumble; she didn't see him fumbling to keep his hold on his automatic. She hit the pavement, and the wind went out of her. Her eyes jolted open in time to catch Wally hitting her goon in the jaw with a fist like a headache ball; goon number two rounded the truck, and Red came out of the back like Bruce damn Lee and knocked him flat. It was over just like that. That damn easy.

Wally grabbed her hand in his mighty paw, hoisted her off the blacktop. "Good job, Annie."

"You guys watch too many movies." She took a deep breath, blew out hard. "Hell, gal'd think you're Randolph Scott."

"Take that as a compliment, ma'am." Wally grinned. "I'm drivin'. Red, get on the horn t' Leeds. Tell 'em we're on the way."

"Yessir." Corporal Jeffries, hopped up on adrenaline, scrambled to the truck's cab.

"What about them?" Main nodded toward the goons.

"Leave 'em. Let 'em hobble back t' Infinity. Leeds'll have that place closed down, crap like this goin' on." Wally swaggered forward along the truck, swung himself into the cab. "Annie, get their guns."

He started the truck; she heard the gearbox grind; she grinned and muttered: "Now, how'n the hell'd I know you'd say that--?"

One gun, one slender army automatic, and she heard Red say: "Shit--!"

The other automatic, heavy and gray, and up in the cab Wally asked, "You cut yourself, Red--?"

She was wondering whether she should check the goons for ammo; up front, Red was saying, "There's a damn-- Look: there's a damn razor blade taped to the handset."

Naw. They'd have bullets enough in the loaded clips. Wasn't that far to Leeds anyhow. Main walked up alongside the truck. "Slide over, Red. I ain't ridin' in the--"

The truck lurched forward, rolled. A tire nearly chest-high nearly ran over Main's foot; she jumped back. From the cab came a shout, a series of shouts, thumping, thudding. The truck rolled on, gained momentum.

"Wally--? Red--?"

She froze for a moment, there in the middle of a narrow strip of blacktop under a raining sky in West Yorkshire. Then she walked after the truck; then she ran. It went maybe a hundred yards before it met a gentle curve; it continued straight on even as the road didn't; it nosed heavily into a grass-grown ditch and bucked up against a low stone wall. It stopped, hung there, its motor rumbling in the rainy air.

Main slowed to a trot. "Wally? Red?"

The passenger-side door creaked open, and Red stumbled out into the ditch. He nearly fell; he staggered, his movements jerky and wild.

_Something about the way he moved--_

Main stopped. She was maybe thirty feet from him, give or take. "Red--?" she called.

There in the ditch, Red turned toward her. He went rigid, his arms out at odd angles, like they weren't his arms at all. Then he ran at her.

_Christ, he was movin' fast--_

His face was fixed in a snarl, his lips pulled back from his teeth, and she could hear him panting wildly as he crested the ditch and came at her. He was clawing the air with his hands.

She dropped one of the automatics; she flipped the safety on the other.

The worst of it was, he wasn't making a sound, not a damn sound. Just the in and out of his breath, which was coming to her as clearly as the pounding of her heart in her ears. She raised the automatic, steadied her gun hand with her free hand.

Like her daddy always said, _Two hands, Annie. Always use two hands, girl. Two hands and--_

She squeezed the trigger. Bang and a kick clear to her shoulder caps. Red mist burst from the back of Red's skull; his head jerked back, and over he went. He landed on his back on the road and lay still.

She kept both hands on the gun as she went to him. Red lay there, a blackish hole where his left eye had been. His right eye was blood-red, fixed on the gray sky.

"Hell," she said. "Aw, hell."

She continued on to the ditch, clambered down, approached the truck on the driver's side. One last time, uselessly, she called: "Wally--!"

Nothing, but she couldn't but know it already. She held the automatic in her right hand, pulled the truck door open with her left. Wally sat there, slumped against the steering wheel, looking at her with those dumb tiny eyes of his. He was looking at her, and he wasn't looking at her, and his eyes were dead dull blue. Not red. He was looking at her without looking, and his head was turned one way while his body was all twisted another. He looked like a pack of dogs had been at him.

She stepped back from the truck, and it was like all the bones went out of her shoulders. She stood there in the rain and started to cry.

"Hell. Aw, hell. Hell, Annie. Can't stay here, girl. Come on."

She came up out of the ditch. Red was still there; back farther, the two goons from the truck weren't. She couldn't see them anywhere. Likely they were running back to Infinity; more power to 'em. If they weren't-- if they were planning to jump her-- Hell. She'd just shot a friend; at this point, killing two would-be killers could hardly add further tarnish to her Hippocratic oath.

She set off down the road; just ahead a white sign lettered in black read "Leeds 25 km." Still the damn rain, but there was plenty of daylight left, and she was wearing good shoes. With luck, she'd be at the Leeds base in four hours.

"Hell of a way to see Bronte country, Annie," she muttered. "Let's get going."

* * *

"You ready for that 'one more,' Jim?" asked John Isaacs. He had about him an air of heightened energy, as though he'd stopped off for an espresso. Or a line of cocaine. He'd been gone just under twenty minutes.

He sat; Jim sat back down, too. "Sure."

"So, uh-- Wait. You need anything? Restroom? Water?"

"No."

"Okay." Isaacs settled himself in his chair, straightened his tie, pressed the button on the micro-recorder. "Major West. Henry West. He's mauled, yes; but he's got bits of glass on his clothes, embedded in his scalp. Automobile glass. You know anything about that?"

"You tell me."

"We know that there's a cab parked outside that cottage you were holing up in, you and the girls. We know it's got a busted back window."

"Don't miss much, do yeh?" That's what he'd been looking at, then. Piotr. That Russian bastard.

"What we don't know is who was driving it. When-- presumably-- Major West went through its back window."

"I was."

"You were."

"Yes."

"See, uh, Jim--" Isaacs kicked back in his chair, rocked it on two legs. "I took a minute to confer with my legal team, the guys talking to Hannah and Selena. You were shot, weren't you? Selena told us you were shot."

"Yeah--"

"Who shot you, Jim?"

Jim's pulse was thrumming, hard, in his throat. "Major West."

"Gut shot, yes?"

"Yeah."

"Shot in the belly, and you're driving the getaway car."

"Yeah."

"So, uh, what happened to West?"

"I--uh-- I hit him."

"With--"

"With th' cab."

"He shoots you-- the once-- right there, right there in the rum-tum-tummer, and you get in the cab and back over him. While he just stands there."

"Yeah."

"That is so Tony Curtis. 'Spartacus.' You know that one, Jim? Kirk Douglas, gladiators, big uprising, and at the end they're all-- man, they're all keen as hell to be crucified in his place. 'I'm Spartacus! No-- _I'm_ Spartacus--!'"

Jim swallowed. "I don't understand."

"Sure you do. See, Jim, that bit right there-- that bit about you driving? That's not what the girls are saying."

"But--"

"Selena's saying you buckled. Understandable: gut shot hurts like hell. I'd be crying, buddy: no lie. Nothing to be ashamed of. Hannah's saying she was driving. She was driving, and she backed West into a whole mob of infected, and they tore him apart."

"No--"

"My advice, Jim-- You want my advice, right--?" Isaacs tipped his chair back onto all four of its legs, leaned forward, parked his forearms on the table. "Let her take the hit. She's a juvie."

Jim said nothing. It struck him again, like an actual physical blow: awful hopelessness. In the last few days, the last day especially, he'd grown utterly unacclimated to it. Isaacs was watching him. He sat for maybe thirty seconds, sharing Jim's silence, and then he said, "You're taking all this remarkably well. Better than Selena, anyway. Burns set her straight on what you were in for, and she parked one on his nose."

"She did what--?"

"Hauled off, and 'BAM.' Boy's gonna be blowing red for hours. Nearly had to put her in restraints."

"I want to see her." This bloody naked room, the stale air. God, it was as though he'd been asleep. Suddenly Jim was on his feet. "I want to see her. I want to see her now. Now--!"

Before him, John Isaacs smiled calmly. "Buddy, okay. Jim, it's fine." He stood. "I'm sure Burns won't mind a break. Right this way."

* * *

Less than twenty feet down the powder-gray hall, another door. Isolation Lab 2, stenciled in black on the wall. Isaacs knocked, opened the door. It was a room exactly like Jim's. On one side of the metal table sat a dark-haired man in a dark suit. Burns. It had to be. His nose was blotched and trickling blood; he was dabbing at it with a handkerchief. Across from him sat Selena. Behind her stood the soldier who'd likely been standing guard outside, before Selena had "parked one" on the had-to-be-Burns' nose.

"Jim--" she said. But she didn't get up; likely Burns, behind the stinging extension at the center of his face, had outlined for her an if-then scenario connecting the concepts "move" and "get shot."

He set aside his handkerchief. "What's up, John?"

"You are, buddy." Isaacs grinned. "Hell, she _pegged_ ya, didn't she? C'mon, let's take five. You too, G.I. Joe. Give these kids a minute alone."

Jim watched her as the room emptied; she watched him. Alone, no pretenses: she came to him, and he wrapped her in his arms.

"I thought we made it." Selena pulled him close, held him tightly. "Jim, I thought-- God, I thought it was over."

"We'll get through this. It's gonna be okay."

"They're talkin' about _hanging_ you, Jim."

"Shh, love. Oh, darlin', shh-- No one's hangin' me." He pulled back just far enough to look at her face, to meet her eyes. "Jesus, Selena: think. Think. What if--"

"What?"

Maybe it was the fear in her eyes; his own fear stepped aside, made way for something akin to courage. The thought came to him even as he voiced it: "What if they're fucking with us?"

"What are you saying?"

He again pulled her close, whispered: "I don't think they're lawyers."

Her breath was warm on his ear: "What are they, then?"

"I dunno. Scientists. Maybe even-- maybe even th' ones who made it. The virus."

"What do they want with us?"

She was relaxing against him, ever so slightly. If he closed his eyes-- and he did, just for a moment-- he could pretend they were back at the croft, warm in their bed, talking quietly in the darkness of a Cumbria night. "All those questions about the mansion. Things at their worst, and they want t' know what kept us tickin'. They want t' know what kept us alive."

"So they can-- Christ, Jim, we have to get out of here."

"Yeah, we do."

A sharp knock at the door; Selena started against him. Isaacs called: "One minute, you two. Wrap it up!"

Jim caressed her cheek, looked into her eyes. Then he kissed her deeply. "I love you, you know that?"

"Yeah. I love you, too."

"They give you meds tonight, you palm 'em, yeah? I'll come for you. Half three."

"How--"

"I'll find a way. Place'll be dead quiet. We'll find Hannah; we'll go."

"Okay." She kissed him. "Behave yourself 'til then."

"'Til then, darlin'."

The door opened. Jim looked over at Burns, smiled. "And don't be beatin' on that fella. Here t' help us, he is. Aren't yeh, Mr. Burns--?"


	5. Chapter 4

Just short of eleven-thirty, Piotr left the shuttle at the mechanics' shed, crossed back to the chopper hangar. He carried a paper bag packed with tinfoil-wrapped sandwiches; in a welled cardboard tray, he balanced two lidded paper cups of black coffee. He passed through the opening between the main doors, walked between the matched rows of Bells. No clattering, no swearing, no sound at all echoed forward from the Super Lynx. Andrej must have taken a break. Finally.

"Andrej," he called, walking. "Come and eat."

The side door on the Lynx was open. Piotr set the bag and the coffee tray on the deck just inside, stepped back to the base of the maintenance ladder, looked up. It was automatic; he'd nearly come to think of the chopper's top as Andrej's quarters. "Andrej! Food!"

From inside the chopper, a sound. Rustling, a low moan. Piotr leaned inside the chopper, looked aft. On a rainy day, the lamps chain-suspended from the hangar's high ceiling seemed that much more distant, that much more ineffectual. Very little of their light reached the interior of the Lynx. Piotr saw flight-suited legs stretched straight, saw a shadowy torso propped against the back wall of the passenger cabin.

"Andrej--?"

He stepped inside, moved toward the body. His own frame blocked some of the light coming through the door, but he could see clearly enough: Andrej. Of course it was. His eyes were closed; his head was tipped down and to the left. He was breathing deeply, roughly.

Piotr hunkered down before him, reached to shake Andrej's ankle. He paused. _No. Let him sleep. He can eat later._ There also was the matter of Hannah and her friends, but that, too, could wait the space of a nap. Neither Piotr nor his black-tempered co-pilot, bunking in the utilitarian insides of the Lynx, had had much sleep during the last night or, for that matter, during the previous night, after the chopper had developed a problem in its gearbox and been towed to its roost here in the hangar. A rested Andrej would be a clearer-thinking Andrej. Very likely a less foul-mouthed Andrej, too. Piotr began to rise.

Then he caught the smell. Alcohol. By Andrej's side, on the deck of the chopper, lay a flask. It was plain silver; it was capped; before he picked it up, Piotr knew what it contained: wheat vodka.

"On duty, Andrej," he said quietly. "At least you won't be flying today."

He straightened, returned to the chopper's side door and the sandwiches. He seated himself in the door, his feet nearly touching the floor of the hangar, and unfolded the top of the sandwich bag. Behind him, Andrej stirred.

"Come eat something before your head begins to ache," Piotr said. "These sandwiches don't look half bad--"

He turned, handing back the bag.

Andrej was right there. Right there. His mouth was open in a silent snarl. His eyes were blood-red.

He flailed in seconds through the space separating him from Piotr: Piotr shouted in shock, threw himself sideways. Andrej followed; his teeth closed on the air where the right side of Piotr's face had been; he bowled into Piotr, and the two of them pitched out of the chopper, onto the hangar floor. Piotr landed hard on his back. Andrej was above him, snapping and clawing. Piotr caught his wrists, and Andrej's teeth came right at his face.

Piotr released Andrej's right hand, blocked Andrej's biting mouth with his left forearm. Andrej's teeth locked on the fabric of his flight suit, bore down with terrific pressure on the skin of Piotr's arm.

_No--_

Andrej was still clawing at him, but Piotr's awareness was focused now on that one bite-sized oval of flesh on his arm. Kevlar reinforced the fabric of his flight suit, but the cloth was still cloth: it was giving way, the weave was unraveling. He was seconds away from infection. Seconds.

He looked back and about, desperately. More the fool, he wasn't wearing his sidearm. A weapon: something, anything. Nothing. Nothing on the floor. Seconds passed--

He looked again at Andrej, realized: Andrej still wore his tool belt.

The stupidest thing, the least instinctive thing he would ever do: Piotr released Andrej's left hand, reached desperately for the yellow handle pocketed in Andrej's heavy leather belt. Andrej clawed his face. Piotr shouted in pain and fear.

The screwdriver came free in his hand.

He swung it as hard as he could at Andrej's head. Wide: the blade scraped Andrej's scalp, deflected. Piotr nearly lost his grip; he pulled his arm closer; he swung again, harder.

The blade thudded into Andrej's temple, buried itself there. Andrej arched back, his teeth ripping free of Piotr's sleeve, and toppled to the floor.

Piotr lay shaking. He looked at his left forearm: where Andrej had bitten him, the fabric was wet with saliva, torn and pocked with toothmarks. He scrambled to his feet, unfastened his flight suit with shaking hands, shrugged and struggled out of the upper half. Seconds passed. Seconds. He looked closely at the skin of his forearm: tiny indentations, both sharp and blunt, pocked and reddening--

_God--_

No. He looked. No.

No blood. He wasn't bleeding; his skin was unbroken.

Then he felt the stinging in his right cheek. He reached up, and his fingers came away tipped with blood. He choked at the sight. Could it spread like that? Saliva, blood: that he'd heard. _Dear God._ If there were a cut on one of Andrej's fingers-- Christ, the man was one for gnawing his nails-- what? Ten seconds? Nine--?

He stumbled past Andrej's body to the chopper, pulled himself inside. His automatic hung in its holster on the wall of the cabin just behind the pilot's seat. He unholstered it, flipped the safety, put the barrel to his temple.

Five.

Should he know it by now, if he were infected?

Four.

The second beyond, would he still have the will to pull the trigger--?

Three.

Would it hurt--?

Two.

_I am sorry, Hannah--_

One.

One.

One.

Nothing. He was holding his breath; he chanced inhaling. Nothing. He exhaled. He closed his eyes, and tears squeezed between his lids. He let his right hand, his gun hand, fall to his side. Another breath: nothing. No shrieking pain, no heat, no rage. He was still Piotr Kalinovich.

For a long moment, he stood like that, simply breathing, shaking, his eyes closed. Then he re-safetied the automatic, went to the door of the chopper, leaned weakly against the frame. Andrej was sprawled at wrong angles, very still. The blood from his temple was pooling beneath his head.

An anger that had nothing to do with the rage virus began to build in Piotr's mind. He and Andrej had been nowhere near sick areas; Hannah and Selena and Jim were healthy. In the time it had taken Piotr to contact their liaison at Leeds and find them food, someone had murdered Andrej and transformed him into a tool with which to murder Piotr. And this went beyond murder to pure psychosis: no sane person would intentionally unleash infection.

_What to do--?_

He would not trust the Western Star personnel, and he had more than a passing suspicion that the American army personnel at Infinity Base were not to be trusted, either. He needed to be away from here-- where? Leeds was the first and most obvious answer: his liaison there, Lieutenant Tracy, seemed a decent enough man. But what would he make of Pilot Kalinovich's refugees? For Piotr wasn't leaving Infinity without Hannah, Selena, and Jim: that was a fact. Andrej had called it a character flaw, and one likely to get his big dumb pilot damaged or killed: a soft spot for strays.

"We brought them here," Piotr said quietly. He looked at Andrej; if Andrej had sat up and called him a fool, Piotr wouldn't have been surprised. He had yet to adjust to the fact of the man's death.

Alright. Plans. Piotr shook his head, hard. If they traveled to Leeds, the Army command there would contact Infinity, and Infinity would simply request the return of its three special guests. Lieutenant Tracy, meanwhile, would see fit to return to the Danish navy a pilot who'd not only lost his co-pilot (the inquest into Andrej's death would follow shortly) but who had co-opted (read: stolen) the vehicle that brought him and his wayward friends to Leeds.

So Leeds was out. Perhaps it was time to go home.

First: a flight suit uncontaminated with virus-laden saliva. Piotr bundled up his damaged suit, hid it. He thought also of hiding Andrej's body; he decided against it. He then went to find a charged tow cart-- still the Western Star mechanics kept clear of this hangar: no work to be done here, all the birds healthy but for the sick Super Lynx belonging to those damned Russians, and no heavy call for transport heading north. So he had his pick of choppers.

He chose a Bell 212 in Western Star blue and white, parked near the front of the hangar. Its maintenance list was clear; it was fueled. Piotr dragged the tow cart between its skids. Then he transferred from the Super Lynx to the Bell anything that might be of use: a medical kit, a flare gun, a collapsible ladder, packets of survival rations, Andrej's automatic, ammunition. Andrej's flask, too: Piotr slipped it into a leg pocket.

When he finished, nothing remained but the waiting. He would move after the sun set, after the base settled in for the night. He found an access ladder leading to the catwalks below the hangar's high metal ceiling; from one of those catwalks, he swung himself into the rafters; in the shadows, he waited.

* * *

Wasn't just Topeka in April: a sea of mud was a sea of mud the world over. Annie's tired feet carried her across the A1 north of Leeds to the air base at Dishforth. In better times, the place would've looked like a college campus: buildings in brick and warm browns, hangars resembling dorms, a football pitch, plenty of trees. But these weren't better times. Before the plague hit, the base had been open to traffic on all sides; now a twelve-foot fence topped with razor wire surrounded the whole mess. Guard towers at the corners, a high double gate on the west side, right where her sore feet were heading. Four young fellows wearing green fatigues and carrying light machine guns watched her walk up. They paced like Dobermans behind the fence, their faces wary, predatory, bored.

"Evenin', fellas," Annie called. "Who's in charge here?"

The smallest of the Dobermans broke from the pack and walked up to the gate. "What can I do for you, ma'am?"

"You can let me in, for starters. Been walkin' most of the day."

"Would you care to identify yourself, ma'am?"

"Annette Main, M.D. Just come from Infinity Base, west of here. What's your name, son?"

"Morris, ma'am." The Doberman called Morris blinked, frowned. "You walked from Infinity, ma'am?"

"Certainly feels that way, Morris. We encountered a spot of trouble on the road, and I need t' speak to the fella in charge. Care t' let me in?"

"'Trouble,' ma'am?"

_Oh, for the love of--_ "We got--" Annie paused, and it struck her again: Red and Wally were dead. Dead some six hours ago, some twenty miles back. Lord, she was tired. The walk had taken longer than she'd thought it would. At her back, the sun was bellying under the clouds down to the rolling hills. Reddish early sunset light lent a glow to the tops of the Dishforth buildings. "Got a couple of fellas dead back west a piece. Guys who set it up said they were bringin' us here. You need t' let me in."

"Were you attacked, ma'am?"

Annie bit both her lips. "Steve McCloud still in charge here? Major McCloud?"

"Yes, ma'am."

_One more "ma'am," Morris, and you'll be sippin' your chow through a straw for the rest of your days._ "You want to get on the horn, tell Major McCloud we got trouble over at Infinity. And you want t' be lettin' me in. _Now,_ son."

* * *

_"Did you ever think maybe we're the monsters?"_

_Outside the window, all the sounds you never heard in London: tree frogs, crickets, living things whirring and chittering and chirping, noises like a vibrant scrim hanging in the night. The window was open but screened. A pale shadowing of moonlight, a hint of breeze. He was just warm enough, and she was lying on her side next to him._

_He pressed his hand over hers, against his chest. "There are no monsters, Selena."_

_"You sure, Jim?"_

_"Sure I'm sure. Go to sleep, love."_

* * *

"'Fraid I've got some bad news, Jim," said John Isaacs.

He'd been gone again, this time for roughly an hour. During that time, two soldiers brought Jim a paper cup of coffee and a sandwich made of processed meat and bleached-white bread. They walked him to the restroom and back again. He looked at the door of Isolation Lab 2 and knew that Selena was no longer behind it. But now that he knew what he had to do, he no longer felt despair. He felt very little at all. He looked at Isaacs calmly. "What's that, then?"

"Things aren't going so hot up top. I gotta say-- let me just say this up front: you've done a hell of a job here today. Very candid. That's great-- that's the best thing-- Honesty. Nothin' like honesty for building a strong case. And, man, I gotta tell ya, that thing with Mitchell--" He shook his head, grinned. "Off the record, but my hat's off to you, Jim. The _eyes_--? That is hardcore, man. Hard. Core."

Maybe it was the grayish meat in the sandwich. Maybe it wasn't. Jim felt queasy. He kept his voice polite. "What's the bad news, then, Mr. Isaacs?"

"Bad news is, you've got people spooked. Let my super hear a chunk of our chat, and now he's thinkin' you're Jim the effin' Ripper. He knocks heads with the base chief, and the two of 'em, they're sayin' the best thing is to keep you locked up. Looks like you're sleeping in the cellar tonight, Jim."

"In here."

"Right in here. Sorry, man."

"And Selena? Hannah--?"

"I'll tell 'em goodnight for ya, okay?" In his voice, Jim heard a taunt. No: a challenge. Isaacs' expression was friendly, but his eyes were slate-flat.

_Jim the effin' Ripper. Slight fella, skinny, quiet. We're the worst ones, aren't we--?_

"You do that," Jim said evenly. The muscles in his back and arms and shoulders were tensing.

"I will. See you in the morning, buddy."

Out he went. The deadbolt slithered, clicked. Jim left his chair. He stood against the wall beside the door, slid down to the floor, pulled his knees to his chest.

Really, he felt very little at all.


	6. Chapter 5

They gave Annie dry clothes and let her clean up a bit. They asked if she wanted anything to eat or drink, and she troubled them for a mug of tea and some toast. She was hungrier than that, but her stomach was twitching something fierce. They parked her at a table at the front of a small briefing room with raindrops smacking at its darkening window and left her sitting there some fifteen minutes. Then a skinny tall fella named Montgomery, who wore a sergeant's stripes on his arms, came in, sat himself down, and talked to her while she finished her tea (which was a damn sight better than any coffee you'd come by, this side of the Atlantic, even at an American-run outfit). He asked her about Infinity; he asked her about Wally and Red.

"And you wanna be damn careful when you go pick 'em up." Annie looked into the tea remaining in her mug. "Red-- Corporal Jeffries, he got himself infected."

"You have infection at Infinity, Dr. Main?"

"Nope. No. Somebody planted something in the damn truck. Corporal Jeffries cut himself on it."

"You're saying someone tried to kill you."

"That is exactly what I'm sayin'. They killed Wally-- Corporals Wallace and Jeffries. Son, does Major McCloud know I'm here?"

"He knows."

Annie raised her eyes. Montgomery looked back at her politely. His face gave away about as much as a concrete block.

"Somethin' you're not tellin' me, Sergeant Montgomery?"

He ventured a smile. She could tell: he was a fella who smiled plenty and who thought his smile'd make people like him. She wanted to hit him for it.

"When we've corroborated your story, Dr. Main, we'll let you know."

"That's not what I asked."

Sergeant Montgomery unfolded his lanky self from the chair he'd been sitting on. "You look exhausted, ma'am. I'll ask the warrant officer to find you a place to rest."

"Do I look in need of a restin' place, Sergeant?"

He came that close to touching her shoulder before she glared him off.

"This way, Doctor."

* * *

After dinner, a plate of stew in whose mustering the gorilla-like Corporal Wallace surely had no hand, Selena waited through the rest of the rainy evening. She waited past midnight. She wanted to sleep. That was stupid: she had a list of wants, and sleep happened just to be one of them. Seeing Jim come through the door of her room intact and healthy was another one; seeing Hannah safe was another still. Seeing Mr. Burns with little bloody pockets where his front teeth had been: that one drifted on the line between "want" and "fantasy."

At least she wasn't being watched. Her soldierly escort had deposited her back in her quarters and left her to herself. Thinking it silly but likely a last, best chance, she showered quickly, dried herself, re-dressed. Then she waited. To stay alert, to stay more focused than afraid, she stretched, did push-ups, moved through a bit of yoga.

She listened, too, as best she could. All she heard came early on. Motion in the hall. Boots were softer-soled these days, so she heard no film-style foleyed footsteps. What she caught was the rattling of hardware on belts and weapons, the creak of leather, a jangling of keys. All toward and at Hannah's room. If she doubted that, she heard also Hannah saying, "'Night, then"-- and was glad when she only imagined the end-tag: "-- arseholes." She heard nothing from as far down as Jim's quarters.

One a.m. came and went.

* * *

When Piotr was just about an hour past being sore enough to contemplate leaving the rafters to stretch, he heard a car motor outside, heard car doors open and thump closed. Three men entered the hangar through the gap between the main doors and walked down to the Super Lynx. Two of them wore light jackets; the third wore a black raincoat over a dark suit. Piotr huddled into the steel V in which he'd perched himself and looked most carefully at the third, tried to gather what detail he could at such a distance and in diminished light. Tall, lean, likely powerfully built. Dark hair, receding hairline. He and the other two looked about-- likely, absolutely, for a body or bodies. When they found only Andrej, they didn't seem distressed, though the jacketed pair kept a ginger distance between themselves and the corpse. The man in the raincoat swept the area with his eyes; for a moment he cocked his head and went very still, as though he were listening intently.

"Let's go," he said, finally. "Nothin' here but ghosts, boys." American. Of course. He led the other two out.

Then, suddenly, he returned. Piotr, his body weight nearly committed to a downswing, barely caught himself in time. In the light from the floods above the outer doors, the man in the coat was the apex of a long triangular shadow. He again looked around the hangar; this time, he raised his eyes higher. Piotr forced himself to relax against the girders. The man looked right at him-- Piotr willed himself deathly still-- but saw, seemingly, only shadows and darkness. He again turned and left.

A car door slammed; a motor started. Tires burred off across the wet blacktop. Piotr released his breath.

Down he clambered, stiffly, from the rafters. He left the hangar by way of one of the human-sized side doors and cut over to the mechanics' shed. On the way, he took Andrej's flask from his leg pocket. He swished vodka in his mouth, spit it out sloppily, let it dribble onto his chin. He saw headlights too high to be the headlights of a car and staggered toward them, waving. The last shuttle of the evening. He'd take a chance on the assumption that the sinister goings-on at Infinity were more the doing of the raincoated man and his cronies at Western Star than of the American army-- certainly of an American army bus driver. He stumbled up the metal step into the bus, and the driver said, "Lucky you, buddy."

Piotr looked down the bus, across rows of black padded seats. He and the driver were alone.

"Am wanting sleep," he mumbled.

"Am wanting a trip to the brig, more likely." The driver shut the door. "Sit yourself down."

Piotr lurched, sat heavily in the first seat opposite the driver.

He kept his head low and lolling while they drove to the main building. The driver would find it understandable, given Piotr's spirituous odor; more than that, anyone who might be out and about would have a hard time identifying the shuttle's one passenger. The bus trundled to the east side of the building and stopped near a loading dock beyond the workingmen's entrance. The driver shut down the engine, stood, pocketed the ignition key.

"'Fraid this is it, pal. Front door's locked, after hours. We gotta go in the freight entrance. Come on."

He shook Piotr's shoulder. Piotr heaved himself up and out the door, nearly fell down the shuttle's steps. The driver caught him, got his shoulder under Piotr's right arm, and hoisted him up the stairs to the freight doors. They passed through unchallenged.

"Why no guard?" Piotr slurred, staggering. They were moving through a warehousing area down an aisle wide enough for a forklift, industrial steel shelving on either side, lightbulbs glowing from steel cages suspended from the ceiling. No one was about. Nor could he hear anyone talking.

"What for?" The driver shrugged, shifting Piotr's bulk. "Christ, buddy, you made of lead--? Guys at the perimeter see everything coming in. Anyway, the zombies are all dead now. Dead-dead. Didn't they tell you that in Vodkaville?"

"What for is 'Vodkaville'?"

The driver chuckled, lugging. "That, my friend, is your home town--"

He doubled over around Piotr's fist. Piotr straightened, straightened the driver, and drove his knuckles into the man's face. The driver's head snapped back and rebounded limply, and he and his cargo changed roles. Piotr dragged the man well down a dark aisle and took the bus key from him. He returned to the main aisle, continued forward toward a far set of steel doors with the word EXIT signed in glowing red above them.

Before he left the warehouse, he scanned the room's front wall, found a map showing the building's fire exits. YOU ARE HERE: a red dot on the chart's right side. A crosshatched smattering of offices, areas of cubes, a large open square where the mess was. The dorms ahead and to the left, on the building's north side. Piotr broke the map from its frame, folded it, put it in his pocket.

He passed unchallenged through the main building, through the halls leading to the mess, the dorm area. Part of it was his attitude. When you are in an unfriendly place, his father had told him, keep quiet. Keep quiet, move quickly and confidently, and anywhere you are, you will look as though you belong. The other part of it was the hour. Very simply, there were few people about.

Not that he was completely without suspicions. At an ordinary base, devoid of conspiracy, an alert might have issued for his apprehension. But, he suspected, Infinity was following the dark agenda of the man in the black raincoat; since the man and his two followers were not in evidence, Piotr was free to move as he pleased. He hadn't the time to question his temporary-- for it couldn't last, not when the bus driver regained his senses and raised the alarm-- good fortune.

According to his map, according to his memory of the previous morning, the dorm hall lay just ahead, around a right turning. He eased to the corner, looked cautiously around it. A single soldier, standing at the second of three doors on the right. The first door, nearest Piotr, was open; the room within was dark, the corridor without only dimly lit. Piotr stepped around the corner. He kept close to the wall, moved from a walk to a rush. He caught the barrel of the soldier's rifle as the man turned; the man began to exclaim something; Piotr's right elbow slammed across his jaw, and he shut up and dropped. Once again, Piotr struck him, this time with his fist, where the man's jaw met his neck. The soldier went absolutely limp. Piotr took his rifle.

Hannah's room, 116, was the second of the three on the corridor's right side. The door was locked. Piotr knocked, said quietly: "Hannah--?"

A pause. Then, right through the panel, inches away: "Piotr--?"

"Stand back, please."

* * *

At two-forty-five, noises from the corridor. Selena, seated on the edge of the bed, hadn't been dozing, but the stillness had become nearly hypnotic. The sounds, certainly controlled, certainly discreet, were as sharp as gunshots. She started, rose. From the corridor, to the left, a choked shout, a thumping. A pause. Then a tight splintering sound. Selena eased up beside the door.

"Selena--?"

"That you, Hannah--?"

"Step aside, yeah?"

Selena stepped away from the door. With a blunt crack, the door swung in after her. Hannah, it seemed, had undergone a drastic change. She was now a he; the now-a-he Hannah who stood in the doorway to Selena's room was tall and broad and and dressed in a pilot's dark green flight suit. Hannah the original looked out from around her new self, who looked not unlike Piotr, and said, "Come on. We're rescuin' you."

Selena looked from her to Piotr. "Where's Jim?"

"He's not in his room--" Hannah said. She looked at Piotr; the big Russian glanced away, checked the corridor, left and right.

"What-- you thought he was in here?" Selena asked.

"Makes sense, don't it? You two are practically--"

"Right. Yeah." Selena's cheeks went warm. "Sorry, Hannah, but tonight we're not." She joined Piotr at the door, looked out. "They questioned us downstairs. Maybe he's still there."

"Could you find your way?"

"Yes."

"Show me." He took from his pocket the purloined facility map, unfolded it for her. Selena leaned in close, traced the route with her finger. "Here." To their right, across the hall, fire stairs. To their left, down the corridor and around a corner: the elevators. The isolation labs were three floors down, just off the elevator bank.

Piotr considered. He looked at Hannah and Selena. Selena could swear he was hiding a smile, one small but definite. "Here is what we will do."

* * *

On sub-level three, the doors of the nearer elevator slid open. The soldier on guard at that end of the laboratory hall turned, looked. In the metallic harsh light of the elevator car stood a teenaged girl. Her face was covered in blood.

"Help me--" she said.

She toppled, fell half into the corridor. Her legs remained in the car. Startled, the soldier went to her, unslung his rifle from his shoulder, knelt at her side. He didn't notice that the elevator doors failed to close.

He did notice, a moment later, the gun barrel touching his cheek.

"Surprise," said a woman's voice. Before he could knock away the hand with the gun, before he could raise up his rifle, something struck the side of his head. His brain canceled the rest of his evening's duty; his body hit the floor.

* * *

In the well of the fire stairs on sub-level three, clutching the rifle he'd taken from the soldier in the dorm corridor, Piotr waited. Through the mesh-reinforced window in the stairwell door, he looked across the night-lit corridor at a soldier standing guard outside a gray metal door. The corridor was otherwise empty; Piotr assumed the door led to the isolation lab and to Jim.

Long seconds later-- a minute, maybe less-- the soldier turned his head to the left, as though he heard something. Sounds, perhaps, from around the corner, from the direction of the elevator bank. He moved away from the metal door.

Piotr opened the stairwell door, quietly crossed the corridor. He slipped in behind the soldier, close to the wall; right at the corner, just as the man was looking around, just as he saw the two women, one a blonde, bloody-faced girl, one full-grown, mocha-skinned and lovely, disarming his fellow guard, just as he brought his rifle to bear, Piotr swung his rifle-butt into the back of the man's head. He caught the soldier's rifle as the man fell.

Selena looked over as the soldier crumpled. Piotr gave her a thumbs-up, knelt, found keys clipped to the soldier's belt. He backtracked to the metal door and looked through the reinforced window at the top. The lights were out. In the square of light from the door window, he saw--

A body, hanging. Midway into the room. Olive-trousered legs, bottomed with boots, dangling just about level with his chest.

"Good God--"

He fumbled with the keys, unlocked the door. He groped for the light switch, flicked it. Nothing. He stepped into the dark room.

From where she knelt securing the second guard, Selena heard Piotr's exclamation, saw him leave the corridor. Something knotted hard in her chest; she rose, made for the lab.

A flash of motion from behind the open door. A figure ghost-pale, moving in very smoothly, very quickly, behind Piotr. A glimpse of something long and metallic, a wire-muscled arm going up--

"Jim--!" she hissed.

From his response, she knew he heard the sound but not his name, not her voice. He translated his motion, turned on her. His hand holding the long metal something went up and back. Then he hesitated. He was dressed only in his boxers; his skin was grayish-white in the dim light. His face was angelic and terrible. She'd seen him like this once before; she hated to the core of her being anything that could put that dead cold light in his eyes.

She looked now through that light and said again, gently: "Jim."

Very quietly, as though he were waking from a nap, he said, "Selena--?" He lowered the chair leg. That's what it was. He must have been all evening working it free. He smiled a little, reached for her. She came closer and pressed her cheek against his palm. "Thought I was comin' for you."

"Sorry, sweetheart. Change of plans."

A clattering inside the lab. Piotr appeared at the door, looking relieved and a little confused and holding a pair of trousers and a sweater. When he saw Jim, he smiled. "Jim, you are not hanged. I am glad."

Jim scowled. "Top of the class, were yeh?" Piotr frowned slightly, ostensibly without offense; he went to the soldier lying unconscious outside the dark isolation lab, hauled him inside. Jim watched. He asked Selena: "What's he doin' here?"

Hannah approached, carrying the rifle from the soldier at the elevator. "He's helpin' us escape," she said.

Jim turned to her, and his eyes went wide. "Fuck--!"

"Wha'--? Oh." She touched her index finger to her gory cheek, licked her fingertip, grinned. "Ketchup, innit? From the mess."

"They do not call it that for nothing." Piotr brushed past Jim, winked at Hannah. He handed her a rag or a handkerchief. She beamed. _From "smitten" to "decapitated,"_ thought Selena. She thought also of helping Piotr closet the second soldier, but Piotr already was bumping past Jim with his unconscious army cargo. When he emerged from the lab, after he closed and locked the door, Hannah passed him the rifle, smiling, bright-eyed.

Incredulously, Jim asked: "Hannah, what are you doing?"

"He broke us out, Jim." Selena fixed her eyes on him. "I don't know what you're thinking. Tell me--"

"I'm thinkin' he brought us here. I'm thinkin' he set us up, and I'm thinkin' he'll do it again."

Piotr met his eyes calmly. "We have no time for this. They have killed my co-pilot; we are in danger. We must leave." He offered Jim the second rifle. "Take it, if it will make you feel better."

Jim looked at the gun, looked away. "No, thanks."

"Then we go. Come."

He nodded toward the stairs. Selena ran her hand down Jim's arm, gently tugged his hand. He met her eyes; she glanced downward, smiled wryly.

"You want to put your trousers on, Tarzan?"

"Umm--"

A flying rustle of cloth. Jim's pants, tossed, caught Jim in the head. Deadpan, Piotr said, "Hurry, yes?"

* * *

They retraced Piotr's entrance path. Dim unpeopled corridors, the warehouse, the bus driver lying still where Piotr had left him. The bus parked at the loading dock. Piotr ushered them aboard, started the engine. Still unpursued, they rumbled in the dark and rain across the tarmac to the hangar into which Piotr and Andrej had walked the day before, two days or a hundred days before, after they'd landed.

Jim followed Piotr and Hannah and Selena through the gap between the main doors. Piotr headed for a chopper in white and royal blue parked at the forefront of the hangar. Jim's stomach tightened.

"And we can't make off with a lorry _why_--?" he said.

"This will clear the gate. A truck will not. And a truck will not take us as far as the Shetlands." Piotr, stepping between the chopper's skids, looked at him reassuringly. "Help me with the tow cart, please."

Jim exchanged glances with Selena. "We're goin' to the Shetlands, then," he said.

"Would've been my first guess, actually."

He smiled at her as he followed Piotr to the skids. "Oh, off wit' yeh."

Through the pre-flight prep, and still they went unnoticed. Piotr and Jim hauled the Bell on the battery-powered tow cart to the very front of the hangar, heaved wide the big double doors, disengaged the chopper's skids. Piotr swung into the cockpit, seated himself, donned a radio headset; Jim steered the cart clear. Just before he and Hannah and Selena boarded, he saw lights through the rain, in the direction of the main building. Approaching.

"Here they come," he called to Piotr.

"Get aboard."

A click as Piotr flipped the starter, a rising whine from the twin turbines. Jim followed Selena into the seatless passenger compartment. The rotors began to spin, chopped with rising speed at the rainy air. Jim looked back out of the side door. "Hannah--?"

Selena tapped his arm, pointed forward. Hannah had taken the co-pilot's seat, to Piotr's left. She was wearing a headset matching his, and she was watching intently what the young Russian was doing with the helicopter's controls. Jim frowned wryly at Selena; she met his frown with a wry smile. He slid the door shut as the chopper became light on its skids.

The first of the headlights became personnel carriers. Soldiers scuttled out and down, took up positions. Jim seated himself beside Selena, saw through the windscreen muzzle flashes not nearly far enough away. Something thunked into the fuselage. The engines pitched higher, and they bolted forward and up into the black sky. A steep ascent, an angling turn, and the Bell tipped its nose slightly downward and sailed north.

Better than the first flight, Jim thought, if only because he couldn't see where they were going. Wipers swept water from the windscreen, but Piotr was mainly watching the instruments, his eyes methodically traveling across and between a twin row of dials on the chopper's dash. Minutes passed. Ten. Fifteen. This flight was smoother, too, than the first one had been. Less of a sense that they were hacking their way through the air, less vibration and noise from this helicopter than from the one in which they'd flown from Cumbria. Just as Selena leaned slightly into him, just as Jim himself began to relax, Piotr spoke sharply into his headset.

Jim sat forward, catching Piotr's expression if not his words. The Russian scowled, listened, spoke again. One more time after that. Over the engines, only bits of the exchange, only words: "Leeds." "Lynx." "Negative."

Piotr stopped speaking, paused. The Bell flew on. Hannah looked across at him sharply, her eyes wide. Jim, Selena close beside him, leaned between them. "What's goin' on?" he shouted.

"Leeds has sent two AH-7s after us," Piotr replied. "Attack choppers. They wish us to re-route to the base at Dishforth. I have forwarded our refusal."

"Attack choppers," said Jim. "You mean with missiles and such."

"I have told them that you are civilians and that we are unarmed. They will not fire."

"And if they do--?" Selena asked.

Piotr hesitated. Hannah said, "We take evasive action, right?"

Piotr kept his eyes on the windscreen, on the instrument panel. "This is not a movie, Hannah. We cannot outrun them; we cannot outfly their weapons. If they fire, we will die."


	7. Chapter 6

Of course, they woke her right after she got to sleep, that being somewhat after three. How much tossing one body could do: she'd done her research that night, she had the stats. Annie had just managed to drift into a racing-pulse kind of nervous doze when that gangly fella Montgomery's voice said in her ear: "Ma'am, Major McCloud wants to see you."

This time, he put his hand on her. She swatted it, and not just in a friendly shoo-fly kind of way. She sat up, feeling like someone had lifted her brain out and replaced it with dryer lint. "Right, I'm up, damn it."

She followed him not to McCloud's office but to the base's command center. The major was standing behind a young guy in fatigues sitting in front of a radar scope talking into a headset. Aviation-speak to parties elsewhere, far off.

McCloud patted him on the shoulder. "Tell 'em to sit tight and hold their fire. I'll be right back." He stepped away, came over to Annie, extended his hand. "Dr. Main, sorry for the wait."

She took his hand. He had big hands, a good solid grip. "You better be. What'n the hell's goin' on?"

McCloud smiled wearily. He was short, but she could tell he didn't know it. Middle-aged, lean. Big head, dark hair combed back. Brown eyes that'd seen way too much. "You like this with all the brass?"

"You been around rig pigs much as I have, you tend t' forget your manners around anyone who don't sign your paychecks."

"Noted, Dr. Main. Apologies. We've got a situation here; maybe you know something. Russian pilot we had over at Infinity, he's stolen a Western Star chopper, and he's flying north. Says he has three civilians with him. Which'd be fine, except for the fact he's stolen the chopper, only--"

"Only--? Them three civvies, they're not two gals and a skinny Irish guy, are they?"

"Can't square you on him being Irish, but two women, one man, yeah. They're heading for the Scottish border. Make a long story short: Infinity calls us. Says they're infected."

"That is horse hockey. I checked 'em last-- night before last. Blood's clean as a whistle. Anyway, how'n the hell could they get off the ground if they were infected?"

"Infinity says they had a latent."

"The hell--"

"Guy who's flying the chopper, his co-pilot turns up dead of the virus late last night. Infinity's saying those pilots checked out clean; they're saying that it must've incubated in him--"

"Bullshit. Major--" Annie looked over at the kid at the radar post. On the round black screen in front of him there were three glowing blips. Her gut went tight. "Major, you ain't planning on shootin' 'em down, are yuh?"

"Yes, I am, Dr. Main. Can't let infection cross the border."

"Hell, Major, you know the plague's already hit up there--"

"I know."

"And you know, and I know, there ain't no such thing as a latent."

"Dr. Main, I have a duty--"

"Major, you have a duty not to stick your big dumb head into business you know nothin' about. Them kids are clean."

"My 'big dumb head'--"

"You want me t' put a 'sir' after it? That make you feel better--?"

"No." He called over to the kid at the radar: "Billy--!"

"Sir?"

Annie braced herself, shored up all her bones. She thought of the gals, Hannah and Selena, shy and tough; she thought of Jim, his goofy quiet smile; she thought she'd like about die if they died right now. Top of Red and Wally, it'd be too much for one tired old shack doc, five dead all in the space of one rainy day.

Major McCloud said, "The Lynxes, call 'em off. Tell 'em to come home."

"Yes, sir."

Annie nearly fainted, letting out her breath. She nearly planted a kiss on Major McCloud.

He said to her, much as to anyone else in the room, ""Far as I can tell, we've got a Danish Navy pilot flying a civilian chopper with three civilian passengers. We are not shooting that down. Far as I'm concerned, it's not even our jurisdiction. We've got no beef with the Danes, and we're not the police. Western Star wants that chopper back, they can go get it themselves."

* * *

Miles away, in the rainy dark early morning sky, in a Bell 212 painted white and royal blue-- 

"They are breaking off," said Piotr, incredulously. He glanced at Hannah, at Jim and Selena. He smiled. "They are returning to Leeds."

Hannah grinned back at him. "Yeah--!"

Piotr caught her hand, squeezed it, just for a moment, there in the air between his seat and hers. Selena hugged Jim's shoulders, planted a kiss on his cheek.

"I'm still knockin' wood," he said, smiling.

"Here, I'll do it for you." Selena rapped his temple playfully with her knuckles.

* * *

"Are they away?" asked Thomas West. 

John Isaacs pushed the phone back toward the center of the conference table. "They sure are, Tom."

"Well, that is good. More coffee, anyone?" West gestured around the table with a silver pot. He always handled coffee duty at meetings. Not that the owner of Western Star Oil and Gas was paranoid, no: he just made coffee better than anyone else around, anywhere. He was a tall man, rangy, bald across the top, aged somewhere just past or short of fifty but young in the face, fine-featured. He had a careful, controlled mouth, hazel eyes that could be either shy or agate-cold.

"I'll take some." Isaacs held out his cup.

"Me, too," said Burns.

West smiled, moving around the table, pouring. "You, Charles?"

Charles McKeown shook his head. "Thanks, Tom, no. I'll never get to sleep as it is."

"I envy your discipline, Charles." West topped off his own cup, seated himself in an office chair like any other at the table, on casters, covered in mottled gray cloth. "So our three young people are safely away from American protection."

"That they are, Tom," said Isaacs.

"Do we have a trace on that chopper?"

"Yep. Not that I think we'll be needing one. Shouldn't be too hard to track 'em. Their pilot, that Russian kid, he'll be trying to rendezvous with the Danish fleet. We just need to figure out where he'll set down to wait."

"You're thinking he'll head for a rig?" Burns asked.

"I'm knowing he will. He'll have to. Danes are running supplies to the platforms; makes it all the more obvious."

McKeown looked over at him. "Who do we have up there?"

Isaacs smiled. "Who _don't _we have? The North Sea is ours." He glanced at West. "Any restrictions on my budget here, Tom?"

West, sipping his coffee, shook his head. "None whatsoever, John. Use your imagination." He set his cup down, rotated it slowly by the handle. He pursed his precise lips, watching his coffee benevolently, thoughtfully, as though he were reading tea leaves.

Isaacs waited, knowing Tom's pauses and not minding them. He knew also that Burns and McKeown were too afraid of West ever to speak through one of his silences. Finally, West said, quietly, "You know, when they found Henry's journal, it was like a sign from God. Young woman of color, young Irishman, a teenage girl, they walk into a mansion-- Almost like the start of a bad joke, isn't it? I just wanted to hear them say it, how Major West-- how Henry-- died. I could forgive it, if the virus took him. An act of God. But the acts of men-- omissions-- those I can't forgive. Either they killed him or they left him to die. I wanted to be certain of that." He looked up, looked at the three men seated around him, smiled slightly, shyly. "That's the problem, isn't it, with loving someone else's children: you don't become acquainted with their flaws. You don't develop those tiny pockets of loathing. Henry was my brother's boy-- you knew that already, of course-- and I was his doting uncle. If you would, please, John--"

"Yes, Tom?"

"Kill my nephew's killers for me, please."

* * *

The rain had stopped. The Bell flew on. The sky was a velvety blackish purple, strung with wisps of mist. The ground below was absolutely dark, a rolling black mass seeming only slightly more solid than the air. The cabin lighting was very low, so as not to interfere with Piotr's navigation up front. Selena had gone aft, in search of food. 

"Hooah!" she said.

Jim called back to her: "What's that, then?"

She tossed him a silver foil packet. "It's what's for breakfast." She closed off the rations box, came forward, leaned in between Hannah and Piotr, offered them silver packets of their own. Jim looked at his. A Hooah! energy bar, as produced for the U.S. military. Peanut-butter flavored.

"Unless you'd rather have the apple crisp." Selena settled back in next to him, offered him her own Hooah!

"No, thanks." Jim shook his head, smiled. "Could eat apple-_tree_-flavored, I'm that hungry."

"Thought you might be."

She tore open her packet; Jim opened his. He bit without caution into the bar and didn't have to force himself to chew slowly: the Hooah! demanded it. It was like a brick made of peanut putty. And it was heavenly. He leaned back against the cabin wall, closed his eyes, gnawed. Selena gnawed next to him.

He was becoming accustomed to the sound of the rotors, was becoming increasingly able to place sounds above or below their chopping pitch. From the cockpit, he was hearing pieces of conversation between Piotr and Hannah.

"There. Squeeze, and gently. No sudden changes."

"No sudden-- like that, yeah?"

"Good. Ease forward-- wait-- wait-- and ease back. Very good."

Jim nudged Selena. She met his eyes, nodded, smiled while she chewed.

"Roll it," Piotr was saying. "Gently. There. No twisting, yes?"

"Yeah. Got it."

Jim chuckled over his peanut brick. Selena said, "By the time we get where we're going, she'll either know how to fly this thing or they'll be engaged."

"Here's hopin' it's the first one. Hate t' be the fella tellin' him no." He thought for a moment, calculated their time in the air. "We must be over the Wall by now."

"What's that, sweetheart?"

"The Wall. Hadrian's Wall. We rode it one summer, me an' a couple a' fellas."

She obviously saw something in his face; she looked at her apple bar and smiled. "You and a couple of fellas and--"

"And--?"

"How much weed did you have with you?"

Jim laughed. "Enough for everyone, I guess."

"Bribing the land marshals, hmm? Here: switch." She offered him her bar, took his.

He had a chew of apple-flavored slab. "Them pensioners with shotguns, they're a tough crowd."

"Don't doubt it for a second. You ought to see them at the chemist's on prescription day." She nipped at the peanut bar. "So, what was she like?"

"Who's that, love--?"

"Miss Hadrian's Wall."

Her expression was both wry and serious. Jim put his free hand over hers. "Fair hair. Green eyes. On holiday from the States. New York State." He paused, weaving his fingers with hers. "She wasn't you, Selena."

She didn't speak bitterly: "Should say not."

"No, that's not what I--" He contemplated, picked his words. "She was for the summer; we both knew that. You-- you're--"

"What, then--?"

"You're for always, aren't yeh--?"

With an incredible thud, something hit the top of the chopper, concussed forward with a sound like bowling balls passing through a giant blender. The Bell jerked in the air, lurched. In the cockpit, Piotr shouted something-- likely a curse in Russian; Jim and Selena toppled, tumbled. A terrible, terrible moment, when the helicopter's motion was all wrong--

But they weren't falling. A wrestling, a shuddering in the chopper's frame, and they righted again. Jim untangled himself from Selena.

"You alright?" he asked; she nodded, pulling herself upright. Jim clambered forward to the cockpit. "What in th' hell happened?"

"It is not your fault," Piotr was saying gently to Hannah, who was nodding, shaken. He said to Jim: "We have ingested something."

"What's that--?"

"Birdstrike. Likely a heron. In the air intake." His eyes swept the gauges. "Pressure is dropping in the starboard engine. I am shutting it down before it flames out."

All three of his passengers went a little wide-eyed; Jim volunteered the question: "Can we fly on one engine--?"

"No, Jim, I am making us crash." Piotr flipped a switch, and the driving muffled roar from the engines halved. The bowling-ball clatter stopped. He glanced back at Jim with an expression that didn't quite say _Idiot_. He gave Selena and Hannah a slight, reassuring smile. "We will be fine until Kinloss. We will refuel at the air station, clean out the turbine. Do not worry."

* * *

Near Findhorn Bay, off the Moray Firth, east and slightly north of Inverness, the Royal Air Force station at Kinloss. Under a lightening morning sky of mottled, broken clouds, landing strips and grayish-tan aprons on the seaward side, laid out on a plain of coarse green grass, olive arched hangars behind, a square of low light reddish brick buildings beyond those. Nothing moving on the ground, as far as they could see, all the way to the strips of conifer forest on the station's southern edge. No traffic in the air, either. Piotr circled the hangars, the refueling area. No evidence of destruction, of fire or explosion. 

"The Nimrods are gone," he said. "The core of the squadrons here. Big surveillance planes. Search and rescue. No sign of them."

"What are all those, then?" Selena asked.

Aircraft dotted the area around the fueling station. Choppers, small planes, mostly civilian. All seemingly intact. All seemingly abandoned. No sense to their parking order.

"It's like a graveyard, innit--?" said Hannah.

Piotr frowned. Jim leaned in, looked more closely. "You say their transponder's still up?"

"Yes."

"Could be on automatic, right?"

"Yes."

"I don't like this," said Selena. "How long will it take us to refuel?"

"Twenty minutes-- assuming their tanks are not dry. Possibly forty-five minutes to clear the turbine."

Piotr landed the Bell on an open patch of apron roughly fifty meters from one of the domed hangars and as far as possible from the parked jumble of aircraft. While the port engine faded, went silent, he scanned the surrounding area through the windscreen; he didn't move from his seat until the rotors were still. Then he was up and out the pilot's-side door. Hannah followed from her side. Jim tugged open the sliding door in the passenger cabin, looked out, jumped down. The ground seemed too close; he felt too heavy standing on it. Selena joined him.

"Think we should take one of the rifles?" she asked.

"I'd probably manage t' shoot myself," Jim replied. He squeezed her shoulder. "We'll be done and gone soon enough."

"Sure."

Ahead of them, Piotr was scanning the pavement. "We are looking for a cap marked A, B, JP4, or JP8."

Before Jim had begun to look, Hannah was saying, "Got it. 'A,' right here."

"Good." Piotr looked toward the hangars. "Now we need only the-- There. Jim, come with me, please."

It looked not unlike a giant black-and-yellow garden hose mounted on an old-style milk float. Jim followed Piotr to the truck on legs slightly stiff. He felt averse to approaching the hangar outside which it was parked; the building's bulk seemed to draw off what little light was rising behind them, in the seaward sky.

It didn't help when Piotr said, "Keep a lookout. I need to bypass the ignition."

"Right." Suddenly, taking a rifle seemed like a very good idea. Jim stood away from the fueling truck far enough to have a clear view all around. No movement from the hangar, none from the small-craft graveyard. Nothing approaching from the sea across the coarse-grass fields. Not that he could see the water, not exactly, not in this light; but he caught it, suddenly, in an open cool breeze: the slightest tang, salt. Suddenly he realized: _We're in Scotland. We're this far north. And where we're going--_ He glanced back at the Bell, at the two not-quite-silhouettes keeping their own watch outside it. The two he loved best in all the world. _Where we're going-- who knows?_

The truck's ignition fired, and he jumped. Piotr grinned at him. "Boo," he said.

"'Boo' yerself, yeh big bastard, yeh." Jim grinned back, stepped onto the gas-float's passenger-side running board, held on while Piotr drove them back to the Bell.

Fueling, hoses running from the truck to the ground tank, from the truck to the Bell. Piotr fetched a tool kit and a short folding ladder from the passenger compartment, looked up at the chopper's top. "Should be cool enough. We can dismantle the housing."

Said "we" obviously meant Hannah. She joined Piotr, looking up. "Anything wantin' spanners, I'm on it. What do I do?"

Selena chuckled. "Makes us well obsolete, doesn't it?" she said to Jim, drily. She said to Piotr: "We'll look about a bit, keep an eye on things, alright?"

"Yes. But do not go far."

"Don't worry," said Jim. "We know the drill."

He and Selena walked east on the maintenance skirt, away from the Bell, away, farther still, from the flock of abandoned choppers and light planes. They passed the eastern end of the hangar where the fueling truck had been parked; they looked around the hangar's end back into RAF Kinloss's cluster of administrative and personnel buildings. Early morning light reflected metallic-dark off of the windows looking back at them. Everything was very still.

"I'm for keepin' out," Jim said. He shivered, and not only from the lack of meat on his bones, the sunless air navigating the weave of his sweater. "You, darlin'?"

"I'll second that." Selena nodded, turned back. "Let's have a look at a few of those choppers. Maybe there's something we can--"

_"Help me--"_

A child's voice, thin and high, gender-indefinite. It came from a building ahead and to the right. It sailed out through the air like bird-cry, like the keening of a killdeer.

"Th' fuck--"

Jim knew he had moved toward the building only when Selena caught his arm and stopped him.

"No, Jim," she said. She spoke almost harshly; she shook her head.

_"Help meee--"_

"But--"

"It's called 'paranoia,' sweetheart, and it's going to keep us alive. Come on."

Just as they turned back, a figure stepped out from the building on the right. It was a little boy, possibly eight or nine, dark-haired, pale, dressed in bedraggled drab trousers, a dark green jacket. He stumbled toward them, stopped. "Help me," he said. "Please help me. It's my mum-- please-- she's sick--"

Jim's breath rattled between his lips. "Selena--"

"No, no, no--" Selena was saying. "Jim, we're going. Now."

She pulled his hand, pulled him into a run. They sprinted for the Bell. Ahead of them, Hannah was up the ladder, twisting at something with a wrench; Piotr was just re-capping the chopper's fuel tank. He looked over, saw them, frowned in surprise.

"Piotr--" Selena shouted, "--we have to go--!"

"What is--" Piotr pulled himself to his full height, looking past them. Then he called up the ladder next to the Bell: "Hannah: stop. Put the bolts back, please." He swung into the chopper, emerged with a rifle. Jim felt an acid jolt of fear. He and Selena reached the Bell, stopped, turned, looked back.

A group of figures, human, rounding the eastern end of the hangar. Maybe half a dozen, not running but moving quickly toward them.

"Stand off!" Piotr shouted. He leveled the rifle. "We are armed!"

The group slowed but didn't stop. Hannah came down the ladder. "Back t'gether," she said to Piotr.

"Good, Hannah."

She nodded, packed away the tools, folded the ladder, stowed everything. She met Selena emerging from the side door of the chopper with the other two rifles they'd taken from the soldiers at Infinity. Selena offered one of the guns to Jim.

He took it, reluctantly. "D'yeh have any clue how t' use one of these--?"

She nodded toward the barrel of her own rifle, which was leveled at the dark approaching group. "The bullet comes out that end, I'm figuring. Piotr, start us up--"

Piotr was already opening the cockpit door.

"Wait--"

A man's voice, from the group. Close enough now, in the rising dusky light, and they all had faces, details. Four men, three women, the little boy. All very pale, all with haggard eyes. Young but worn, none of them looking past thirty, their clothing worn-looking, too. The adults wore pieces of RAF uniforms, green wool jackets, drab blouses. Some of them carried pistols; one carried a rifle.

"So much pointing of guns." The man who'd said, "Wait--": he spoke again. He was tall and thin; his eyes were very dark. He wore a wool jacket with a captain's bars. "Welcome to RAF Kinloss."

"We were just leaving, actually," said Selena. "Piotr--"

The cockpit door slammed; Hannah's door, the co-pilot's door on the chopper's other side, slammed as well. Jim heard the clicking of switches. The man in the haggard group, the one with the rifle: he raised the gun, pointed it at the Bell's windscreen.

"Tell 'em no, Bryan--"

He held the gun on Piotr, through the glass; he looked at the man wearing captain's bars. He was shaking, blinking spastically.

"I'm tellin' _you _no, Terry. Don't be gettin' ahead of yourself." The man named Bryan addressed Selena: "As I was sayin', welcome to Kinloss. We're tradin' for fuel. What'll yeh give us?"

"Pardon--?"

"Yeh've helped yourself t' two hundred gallons of fuel, haven't yeh? What'll yeh give for it?"

"You're not RAF."

"Sorry, lass--?"

"It's not your bloody fuel, is it--?"

They bristled, all of them. Selena bristled, too. Jim eased toward the Bell's side door. _Selena, girl, what are you on about--?_

She said, suddenly, "You're bloody gearheads. Junkies."

"Aren't you th' wise one, then--"

"You're bartering fuel for drugs--?"

Bryan smiled, showing brownish teeth. "That's just th' half of it, love. We're tradin' for kit, but not wit' you an' yours. Fact is, we'll be tradin' you elsewhere. Parts of yeh, anyway."

Jim's breath caught in his chest. He was right at the chopper's door. Selena was too far out, too near Bryan's gang.

"Parts--?" she asked. The horror of it: she couldn't keep all of it from her voice.

"New markets, new trade, ain't it?" Bryan looked her over. "Hearts, livers, marrow, all sorts. Guys on th' coast, runnin' body parts t' Europe, Scandinavia. Lucky enough t' have one here can do th' harvestin'." He tipped his head toward one of the group's women, a short ash-blonde with a hard face, glassy gray hard-focused eyes. "Tell yeh what, darlin': you give us him--" -- a nod at Jim-- "--an' th' big fella an' th' girl, you walk out of here just one eye an' a kidney short. Deal?"

"Jesus--" Selena swallowed, gripped her rifle more tightly.

"Ah, put it by, darlin'--"

"Wait," said Jim. Bryan looked from Selena to him. Another dozen or so twitching eyes did the same. Jim set his rifle on the ground. "We've morphine on board," he said. "Are yeh wantin' that? Is that of use--?"

The man named Terry looked at Bryan with eager spastic eyes. "Bry, we could--"

"We could, at that." Bryan nodded at Jim. "Fetch it, lad. But mind: we'd just as soon take her all th' way apart."

He nodded toward Selena. Jim couldn't see her face, could see only the terrible tension in her back and shoulders. He turned, hoisted himself into the Bell, scrambled aft to the provisions. No one followed him. He dug through the emergency supplies, shaking, found a black plastic case, opened it.

He was back at the side door seconds later.

"Let's have it then, lad--" said Bryan. Then he went still, staring. They all did.

Jim held the flare gun in both hands, leveled it at the ground tank whose cap had borne an "A," which cap still lay next to the fueling truck. The hose from the fuel truck still ran to the tank. Jim aimed for the point at which the hose entered the ground. As he would be the first to admit, he knew very little of guns and shooting. But this seemed an easy enough shot, even for a grossly pacifistic neophyte. The tank, the truck, the hose, the sharp smell of aviation fuel, wet traces of it on the tarmac where Piotr had re-coiled the fueling hose that had run between the truck and the Bell: all of it was less than six meters away.

He said clearly: "Let her go."

"Ah, shite--" Bryan said. "Fuck it. Lad, yeh wouldn't--"

"Shoot him, Bry--!" Terry, looking over, shouting. "Shoot _her_--!"

"Yeh shoot me, I'll still have my shot, yeah?" Jim spoke quickly, calmly. "Yeh shoot me an' her, an' you've got nothin'. It all goes. We all go. Nothin' left. No trade. No fuckin' trade."

A long moment. He knew Selena had turned to look at him; he kept his eyes on the yellow-and-black hose, the hole in the paving those twenty feet away. All the guns, even Terry's, were now on him; he knew that, too. He waited, his arms and hands steady.

"Yeh would at that, wouldn't yeh, lad?" Bryan said quietly. He reached to his left, pressed down a hand holding a pistol. "Terry, all yez, put 'em by."

The barrels lowered. Jim kept his aim. He said to Selena, gently, "Come aboard, darlin'." Then he called forward: "Piotr, start 'er up!"

A click, a whine from the port engine. Selena turned from the ragged band, came to the chopper. She climbed in past Jim, her face set. She saw his focus, didn't seek his eyes. The Bell's rotors sliced at the air; the sound of the engine rose from a whine to a low roar. Selena pulled the door nearly closed; Jim held his aim. Terry backed from the front of the chopper, backed clear with Bryan and the others. He raised his rifle, pointed it at Jim. Jim held his aim.

The Bell went light on its skids, lifted free of the ground. In the moment before Piotr increased the throttle, angled the collective up, banked them away, Terry fired.

The slug bit into the doorframe inches from Jim's head. He flinched, re-calmed, fired. The flare shot from the gun in a trail of sparks and smoke. It hit the ground to the right of the hole. It touched a tiny puddle of jet fuel. And that was enough, quite enough. The Bell went away and up; so did the fueling apron at RAF Kinloss.

The fireball rushed at but missed them; the concussion rattled the rising Bell but couldn't knock it from the air. Jim stumbled backward; Selena caught him, steadied him, slid the side door the rest of the way shut. She didn't look down.

Jim sat down, set aside the flare pistol. When Selena joined him, he embraced her. She nestled her head against his shoulder, said nothing.

Piotr called back: "We are alright, yes?"

"Alright: yes," Jim called back. "Hannah, you okay?"

"Yeah!"

All that youthful adrenaline. Jim smiled, feeling suddenly very tired. He nuzzled Selena. "You good, darlin'?"

"Have t' be, with you around."

"We will find a quieter place to set down, finish our repairs," Piotr was saying. "There is a good stretch of beach outside--"

Jim didn't quite catch the name. Pernan? Prenan--? He closed his eyes. The Bell flew north across the Firth of Moray, across water sparkling under a new morning sun.


	8. Chapter 7

It was the first rain-free day they'd seen in nearly a month, and that made it beautiful. A nine a.m. sun hung white-gold in the eastern sky, high wisps of cloud in the clear blue, light skittering and dancing on the water below. Piotr landed the Bell on a wide strip of pale sand at the southern end of a village he identified as Preneen. From the air, Preneen was deserted but not destroyed, whitewashed buildings facing the ocean across a single street, a stone landing, docks. One red phone booth, no boats, no movement.

They set down in an outward spraying of sand, waited for the rotors to still.

The air was a revelation, clear and cool, breezy. None of the mugginess of points south, points sodden with rain. Jim felt as though he were breathing for the first time in weeks, as though he had until now been drawing air into his lungs through cotton wool. Selena stepped from the chopper, stood next to him. They looked from the ocean, scanned to the left, toward the end of the line of white buildings that was Preneen, farther left to the low rough green hills behind the beach and the town, to the west.

Piotr swung from the cockpit, crossed past them, entered the Bell's passenger compartment. Hannah stood outside. He passed tools to her, emerged with the folding maintenance ladder.

Jim asked, "Can we help?"

Piotr and Hannah looked at him and Selena in quiet unsurprised unison.

"No, thank you." Piotr unfolded the ladder. "It is a simple question of cleaning out the organic matter--"

"--an' checkin' that th' fan blades didn't get bent, yeah?" Hannah stepped past Jim with the tool kit.

"Right--"

"Here is what you can do." Piotr reached into the leg pocket of his flight suit, pulled out a pen and a small notebook. He wrote quickly, firmly. "Go to the town. See if you can find a satellite phone, call this number. Give this message to Virgil."

"You want us to make a phone call," said Selena.

"Satellite phone. Not on a local grid. You will be calling an oil rig." He tore the page free, handed it to her. "The _Puffin Three_. Someone may be waiting to monitor our radio transmissions. A satellite call will be harder to trace."

"Sure," Jim said. He glanced at Selena, but she was shaking her head, pocketing the paper. Piotr produced his automatic, checked the safety, held it out to them. Selena took and pocketed that, too.

"Be right back, then. Don't go breakin' anything, yeah?" She looked pointedly at Hannah, who simply colored a bit about her ear-tips and smiled and nodded.

The girl didn't mutter her "Yes, Mum" until Selena and Jim had their backs to the Bell and were underway. She and Piotr shared a chuckle. Selena winced and kept walking. Jim pressed a smirk behind his lips. When they were some forty paces away, their footprints dull-edged on the white sand, he said, "They're completin' each other's sentences. Not sure if I approve."

"Right, then, Da." Selena smiled, took his hand, held it while they walked.

"You think she'll be alright--?"

"No. Frankly, I can't imagine anything more erotic than cleaning a pureed heron out of a jet turbine."

"You're a kinky one, aren't yeh?"

"Entitled t' my fantasies, aren't I--?"

"Guess I'll be stockin' up on herons, then."

They walked on along the beach, their steps waffling on the sand. They found firmer ground about an eighth of a mile on, the sand matting with coarse woven grass before becoming a low hill strewn with boulders. There was a footpath; they followed it to the south end of the town's one street. The paving began-- or left off-- without a curb or a fence; the street sloped slightly upward as it proceeded north. No movement from the white buildings on their left, none on the stone landing. The sea lapped quietly at the mossy quay steps. Midway up the seaward side of the street stood the red wooden phone booth they'd seen from the air.

"You have any change?" Selena asked drily.

"Not a penny."

"That's out, then. If you were a satellite phone in a one-street town, where would you be--?"

Jim considered, looking at the white buildings, their secretive dark windows. "Me, I'd opt for the post or the pub."

The second building up the single street, two stories like the rest, slant- and slate-roofed, too: it bore a sign, black on white: POST OFFICE.

"You take that; I'll find the pub," Selena said.

"Have one for me, then."

He squeezed her hand, released it, moved away; Selena said, "Jim--"

"Yeah--?"

"Be careful."

"And you, yeah?"

At the post office, a double door, solid weathered wood below, four panels of glass on each half above. Jim shielded his eyes from the daylight, peered in. Selena passed by behind him. A brass handle was centered on the left half of the double; he pressed on it; it clicked downward. Unlocked. He opened the door, leaned in cautiously.

"Hello--?" he called.

No response. He swung the door in, followed it. The post office was more than that; it was a shop as well, and it was unlooted. A brown-topped white counter stood to the left of the door, a spinner of faded postcards to its right. To the left also were green shelves stocked neatly with boxes of tissues, deodorant, cough remedies, toothpaste, shampoos. Jim stepped fully inside. The door swung closed behind him. He approached the counter. "Hello?"

Still no response. He leaned over the counter, scanned its back side. A filing cabinet, forms in stacks on low shelves. Jim moved left, looking down and behind-- and then something to his left caught his eye, something on a chest-height shelf just beyond the brown countertop--

Condoms. Four whole dark blue boxes of them.

Jim stared, hesitated. Nothing to do with a phone, satellite or other. Nothing to do with flying north, with repairing the Bell. Nothing to do with his safety, with Selena's or Hannah's or Piotr's. Of all the things he could take-- of all the things on the neatly stocked shelves, the analgesics, the antiseptics, the packets of gauze bandaging-- his eyes found the rubbers and locked on them. _Not in bloody Cumbria any more, are we--?_ Of course, he shouldn't have done it-- he knew it, even as he reached for one of the boxes. He knew it for certain-- as certainly as he would have known from a rumble of thunder that God was watching a sinner on the make-- when a set of shotgun barrels with bores the size of shillings touched the base of his skull.

He drew a sharp breath; the metal was cold. "Ah, fuck--"

"'Fuck' is right." A young woman's voice, burring. "Why, yeh horny bastard. First time lootin', little man--?"

"I'm sorry; I didn't know there was anyone--" Jim tried to look over his shoulder; the rifle barrels rapped the back of his head. "Please-- if you're gonna shoot me, might yeh do it t' my face--?"

The bores like shillings broke contact with his head. "Slowly, then," said their owner. "Keep your hands where I can see 'em."

Cautiously, Jim turned, his hands away from his sides, palm-out. She of the shotgun was petite, early-twenty-ish, intent brown eyes, dark chestnut hair tied back in a ponytail. Sturdy dark coat over a maroon sweater, worn jeans, boots. She held the gun like she knew well and truly how to use it.

"Who th' hell are ye, then? Where're ye comin' from--?"

"London. Manchester. Cumbria. West Yorkshire--"

She cocked the shotgun. Jim flinched. He felt it from his gut up: the memory of being shot, a deep, twisting, nauseating pain. And this would have to be worse. It wasn't just the size of the shotgun in relation to its petite carrier: the thing was a bloody dual-barreled cannon.

"Jim. My name's Jim." He was starting to shake; he couldn't help it. He was still holding the box of condoms; he nodded toward it, tried a smile while he was still able. "Look, it's modern pillagin' an' rapin', innit--? Fella can't be too careful."

A trace of a smile on Miss Firepower's face. For a moment, her eyes followed his to the box. Jim grabbed the gun.

She didn't let go. They grappled, grabbing at the barrels, at the stock. A barrel discharged, and after all the stillness it was like the world exploding. Three bottles of shampoo burst near Jim's head, splattering him with sweet-smelling white goo. He tugged; she jerked; she hauled backwards, away from the counter, leaned back, and stuck a foot in Jim's gut. Then she went over backwards, all the way over, and Jim went over her head, yelling in surprise, his stomach-scar yelping.

He landed on his back, and the shotgun left his hands and hers and clattered away. Not that it mattered-- not that he had time to reach for it: she continued through her backward roll and landed on top of him. Jim grabbed for the rifle, and she hit him in the ear.

"Shit--!"

"Yeah, isn't it, yeh bastard--?" she panted. She pulled back a fist.

* * *

Six doors up, in the building known in Preneen as the pub, Selena heard a gunshot-- nearly cannonshot-- something blasting-- near to the south. She turned from the bar, from bottles in neat rows, liquids in varying shades of gold and honey. 

"Jim--"

Back into the street, back to the post office, she ran: she heard the scuffle before she looked in. The paneled door now was locked; she took Piotr's automatic from her pocket, broke a glass pane with the gun's butt, reached through for the lock. She opened the door, looked in--

What she saw: a shotgun, nearly at her feet. Jim, flat on his back, grabbing for a young woman in jeans and a dark short coat who had one hand gripped tight about his throat, the other pulled back in a fist. She was on top of him, straddling his waist.

"Hey--!" Selena barked.

They stopped their tussling, looked her way. Selena leveled the automatic at the girl.

"You want to get off of--"

Then she saw the box next to them on the floor. Dark blue.

"Oh, this is choice--"

Jim looked; the girl looked, too. They mutually saw the condoms. Jim went red; he nearly sputtered something. The girl said, a bit more directly, "Who in th' fuck are you--?"

"I'm the nice lady with the gun, aren't I? Get off him."

The girl was almost off him, and Selena was just bending for the shotgun, when something poked her hard in the back.

"Drop it." A young man's voice, behind her. She straightened. Another poke, high in her right-side ribs. "Drop it, I say."

Selena nearly dropped the automatic; she considered, then, looking directly at Jim. "Is that a gun or a broomstick, Jim--?"

"Broomstick."

"Thought so." She swung around, swung the automatic hard. The bulk of the gun connected solidly with skin, flesh, bone. A sharp yelp, a stumbling, a clatter of broomstick on floor. Selena grabbed at the collar of a black jacket, pulled its owner up, swung the automatic back again--

"Don't-- Please--!" He cringed, the fellow in the black jacket. Selena held her swing, held onto him. He looked at her fearfully. "Jesus, that well hurt--"

"Shoudn't go about sneakin' up on people, then." She released him, put some distance between herself and him and the girl, who was now all the way off of Jim and on her feet. He was getting up, too, a little gingerly. His hand went to his belly; Selena saw. Fear tingled in her. "Jim, are you alright--?"

"Yeah-- Got in a kick, she did. That's all."

"Come get this shotgun, then."

"It's my shotgun, isn't it--?" The girl stepped toward Selena; Selena trained the gun on her.

"If you've in any way damaged him--"

"You'll what--?" This from the young man, he of the black coat. "The safety's on, love."

Selena looked; the girl snapped, "Tell her then, Robbie, why don't you--?"

He laughed ruefully, held out his hands. "I'm not fighting these people, Laurel. She ever learns to shoot that thing, instead of hittin' with it, she'll be well dangerous." He brought his right hand to his face, gingerly fingered his left, scuffed cheekbone. "And the hit was bad enough, I'm tellin' you."

"They were-- He was robbin' th' store."

"I wasn't. I most certainly wasn't." Jim had picked up the shotgun; he paused now, embarrassment battling indignity for control of his face. "I was lookin' for--"

"Johnnies--?" said Robbie, drolly, smiling. He had eyes like dark sapphires shot through with sparks; he had short deep-auburn hair that would certainly curl, given a chance, and a handsomely pixie-esque face. He was slight, just a touch shorter than Selena. Dimples edged his lips, his even smiling teeth.

"A phone." Jim frowned at him. His ears were slightly pink. "D'ye have a satellite phone?"

"I do. _We_ do." Robbie looked at the girl named Laurel. "They're not hoodlums, darling. You can see that."

"Who are they, then?" Laurel looked at Selena. "Who are yeh?"

Selena met her eyes, saw nothing of drugs, little of threat. She lowered the automatic. "I'm Selena. He's Jim. Come from London and West Yorkshire."

"What brings yeh here? We heard th' chopper--"

"Putting it briefly, some very bad people to the south want us dead." Selena nodded toward the beach. "Our friend with the helicopter kindly put a bit of distance between us and them."

"'Bad people'--?" asked Robbie, his brows drawing in.

"Wantin' me hanged, playin' devil's games wit' th' plague." Jim looked between him and Laurel. "You've had th' rage virus here, haven't you?"

"Indirectly, yes," said Robbie. "Rumors mostly. Terrible things we heard from across the border. Then it reached Glasgow, and people here started packing. By the time it hit Inverness, Preneen was pretty much cleared out. Folks headed for the Shetlands, mostly. My family, my parents, they were out of the country already. Laurel's, too."

"Why'd you stay, then--?" Selena asked.

"It's our home, innit?" Laurel replied evenly. Her eyes were dark and hard. "The post needed mindin', didn't it--? Someone needed to be here in case-- in case--"

Robbie stepped closer to her, placed a hand gently on her shoulder. "In case things sorted themselves again, yes--?" He smiled a small, sad smile at Selena and Jim. "But that's not going to happen, is it?" He paused; they kept quiet. Then he asked: "What do you need the phone for?"

Selena dug in her pocket, pulled out and unfolded the paper Piotr had given her. "The rig we're headin' for-- the oil rig, yeah?-- they need to contact this captain in the Danish Navy--"

Robbie's sapphire eyes twinkled wryly. "You're flyin' off to an oil rig--"

"Yeah--"

"To team up with the Danish Navy--"

Selena's brows lowered slightly, dangerously. "To rendezvous, yeah. With this ship-- the _Helvig_."

"And then, after you and the Danish Navy sail off to Greenland to help Santa conquer the Martians--"

Laurel's eyes flicked from Robbie to Selena. "Dammit, Robbie--"

"Right. Sorry. Phone: right this way." He tried a smile on Selena. "I'm sorry; I couldn't help myself--"

"Sometimes I have th' same problem, yeah--?" Selena's voice was as deadly as it was quiet. She could sense Jim just short of grabbing her, waiting for her to go off. Robbie swallowed, looking in her eyes.

"Yeah." He led them out of the store, back the way Selena had just come, back to the pub. "Phone's in the office up top."

Up a narrow staircase, sandwiched between white plaster walls. "Yeh still have power--?" Jim asked Laurel's back.

"Petrol-powered generator. Been usin' it sparingly." She preceded him, followed Selena and Robbie, into a slant-ceilinged white room. Laminate and black-metal desk on the left, filing cabinets across the way on the right. A small square window at waist level, straight ahead. On a low sturdy table to the right of the desk was a black radio and handset, a black portable telephone resting in a square black cradle. Robbie seated himself behind the desk, reached for the phone.

"Let's see if we paid our bill for the month, hmm--?"

"Funny, Robbie." Laurel looked to Selena and Jim. "Sometimes the signal's not all that steady--"

From outside came a tremendous long moaning. Not organic, not mere feet away: at a distance. It filled the air, concussed in the tiny slope-ceilinged room. They jolted, started. Jim was the first to move. He went to the window, crouched, looked out across the street to the ocean. North of the town, sailing south, he saw a ship of many levels, dingy-white and huge. Dozens of dark doors or large dark windows.

"Looks like a cruise ship," he said.

Laurel crowded in next to him, looked. "It's not. It's-- Shit. It's a livestock ship."

"Meanin'--?"

"Pirates."

Selena said it: "You're joking."

Jim looked more closely at the ship. He noticed, now: movement on its decks. Human figures, some running, some moving slowly, with intent. The former seemed to be in a kind of panic, moving spastically, quickly, without focus; the latter, wearing dark clothing, seemed to be guiding the panic of the former, channeling it. Channeling it down ramps, down short sharp drops to--

"What are those, then--?" Jim shielded his eyes against the sun. At the ship's side, riding low in the deep blue water, were big rectangular craft, black, with sloped bows. "They look like troop landers--"

"They are." Laurel glanced back from the window. "How's it comin', Robbie?"

"Nearly there." He looked up from the phone, looked back at her, and all the devilment was gone from his eyes. "How close are they?"

Jim looked out at the ship. "Close. They're loading people on th' landers. Christ, they're just packin' em on--"

"Good God--" said Selena. Jim turned, met her eyes. "They're infected, aren't they?" She looked from him to Laurel. "They're attacking towns with infected--?"

Robbie jabbed buttons on the phone's base set. "We think so, yeah."

"Then we have to go." Selena started for the door.

Jim stood, joined her. "Robbie, can we make that call?"

"We can; the signal's spotty, but--"

Jim said to Selena, "Give me th' note."

"I'm not leaving--"

"Y'are. You an' Laurel. Get to th' beach, make sure Piotr's got th' Bell in one piece. We'll be there in a minute." He held out his hand. "Don't argue, darlin'."

Selena glared at him. She glared and relented. She handed him the note; she took his face in her hands and kissed him on the mouth. "Don't dawdle." Then she broke free. "Come on," she said to Laurel.

"You either, Robbie." Laurel paused in the narrow door. "Don't mess about."

He looked over at her, his head tipped, the phone clamped violin-like between his ear and shoulder. He smiled for her. "Never, Laurelei. Go on."

She was gone; on the stairs, her footsteps thudded in a rush after Selena's. The horn from the stock ship blasted again, shook the air. Nearer. Jim unfolded Piotr's note, passed it to Robbie. Then he bent again, peered out the window. The landers at the ship's side were nearly loaded. He could see details now, the infected crowded on the barges, hitting at one another, swinging wildly, surging against each other. On catwalks above them and in a pilot housing at the rear of each lander, figures clad and hooded in black moved quickly but calmly, if only in comparison to the frenzy below them. They carried guns and long silver poles. Cattle prods or shock sticks.

The first lander broke from the ship, churned landward through the deep blue water. Jim traced its heading. A strip of beach north of town. Minutes away--

"How's it comin', Robbie--?" He looked to the right, out the window. Selena and Laurel were just onto the beach, moving at a run. He looked out farther, and his heart slipped a bit. The town hadn't seemed all that far from the chopper when they first arrived.

"Ah, we're first-names now. Good. I was hop-- Wait. Hello--?"

He pressed a button on the base set. Static, a man's voice: _-- _fin Three_. Larry G. Dalton. Can I help you--?_

Robbie said to the staticky air: "This is the _Puffin Three_--?"

_No, _this_ is the _Puffin Three._ Dalton. Can I help you--?_

Jim joined Robbie at the phone. "Yeah-- yes, please. We need t' speak wit' Virgil Cooper."

_Who is this?_

"Ah, fuck," Jim muttered. He said evenly: "Look, please, it's an emergency-- We have a message for Virgil Cooper t' give t' Hans Andersen--"

_Hans _Christian _Andersen--?_

"I don't fuckin' know that, do I--? He's in th' Danish Navy. Captain Andersen--"

_Who you got there, Larry? _Another voice, also male, in less proximity to the _Puffin Three_'s transmitter.

_Think it's them Jehovah's Witnesses again, Virg. Should I dump 'em?_

_Gimme that, you goon. Virgil Cooper here._

"Hello, Mr. Cooper. I have a message from Piotr--" Jim gestured for the note; Robbie handed it back to him. Jim stared at it. Was it in English--? Danish--? Cyrillic--? He held it out for Robbie. "What th' fuck--"

Robbie scowled at the paper. "Nali-- Hali--"

"Kalinovich--" Jim blurted. "Piotr Kalinovich."

_Petey--? What's he say--?_

"'Petey'--?" Robbie whispered wryly.

"Shut it," Jim whispered back. He focused on the note. So it _was_ right-side up. Easy, then, right--? "'Pilot Piotr Kalinovich--'" a long series of numbers and letters-- a serial number, something like that-- "--'requests rendezvous and pickup at fixed platform _Puffin Three_'--" --coordinates, numbers, degrees-- "--'on or about 8 July 2003, from Royal Navy Q-cruiser _Helvig_. Self and three passengers. Passengers request'--" Jim paused, looking at the words. He swallowed. "'Passengers request asylum in Kingdom of Denmark.'"

_That it, son?_

"Yes, sir."

_What's your name?_

"Jim."

_We'll be expecting you, Jim. _Puffin Three_ out._

A distant click. Static. Robbie powered off the phone. Jim took a last look out the waist-high window. The first lander was just nosing into the surf on the beach north of town. Maybe a block from the north end of Preneen's one street.

The lander's slant nose swung open and down, ramped and slapped into the frothing water, onto the sand--

"We need t' run--" Jim said. He turned from the window, from the sight of bodies bursting in spastic horrible motion from the lander-- "We need t' run fuckin' now--"

"Right--" Robbie went out the door; Jim went out after him. Their footsteps banged on the stairs. They went out through the dark bar-- Jim saw Robbie's wistful glance at the tidy rows of amber-filled bottles-- and then they were out into the glaring light, onto the street. Robbie turned his head to the left, north; Jim said, "Don't look--"

Too late. "Christ--" said Robbie.

"Run--!" Jim pulled hard, once, on Robbie's jacket sleeve, and then he ran. Robbie did, too. Behind them, well off but moving at inhuman speed, Jim could hear running footsteps. He heard snarling; he heard yelps and animal screams. He heard someone shout: "There-- there they go--!"

He ran. Robbie kept pace. They passed the end of the paving; they picked their way quickly down the bouldered footpath; they sprinted across the matted sea grass to the open sand. Ahead-- it was less than a hundred meters, but it looked to be a hundred miles-- Jim saw Selena and Laurel boarding the Bell. Piotr was at the pilot's-side door, looking north, looking toward Jim and Robbie--

A whistling, a fleshy thud. Robbie shouted in pain, stumbled and dropped--

"God, I'm hit-- My leg--!"

He was on his knees, clutching at the back of his right leg. What looked like a truncated spear-gun spear was sticking out of the jeans material just above his knee.

"Christ-- It's-- I can't feel--" He winced in pain, waved Jim on. "Go on. Go. Damn it--!"

Jim looked back. The infected were passing the phone booth; they were stampeding past the pub-- He looked forward at the helicopter. He bent over. "Get on my shoulders. Get on. Do it!"

Robbie stared at him. "No--"

"Fuck it, Robbie--!" Jim grabbed him, dragged him over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. A muscle twinged in his back when he straightened; he staggered; he blew out hard and started to run.

* * *

She would think, later, that it was like seeing her life end-- 

From the helicopter, Selena saw them, Jim sprinting, Jim's feet shuffling, kicking at the sand. A mob of infected ran in down the hill behind him, moving like-- Jesus, it was like demons running. Beside her, Laurel aimed the shotgun, fired, reloaded. "Hope I grabbed all slugs an' not shot," she said grimly. Beyond Jim and Robbie, among the boulders of the low hill, an infected stumbled, fell. On Selena's other side, Piotr raised one of the rifles from Infinity, aimed up the beach.

"Selena," he said, "take the other gun--!"

"I--" She looked at Jim running, his back hunched. Seconds ticking. Heartbeats. She watched him fight the sand, saw even that far away the desperation on his face. She touched the stock of the other rifle, there on the Bell's black deck, and she froze. "I can't. I can't shoot at-- "

Piotr scowled at her, turned his attention back to the beach, fired. "Hannah--!" he shouted. "What I showed you: do it now!"

Clicks up front; a dual whining, a quickly rising roar. The rotors turned, picked up speed. Particles of sand whorled into the passenger compartment in stinging wisps. Piotr fired, and another infected stumbled, fell. Laurel fired, too, reloaded: slugs, yes, not shot. Behind Jim, less than thirty feet beyond him and Robbie, an infected's head exploded in a sudden red cloud. Jim stumbled-- he stumbled; he recovered. The chopper shuddered. Its skids fluttered on the sand.

A hundred and fifty feet.

A hundred and forty.

Selena could see him panting, could see the tendons straining in his neck. "Don't fucking shoot me--!" she shouted at Piotr. She jumped from the chopper, ducked beneath the chopping rotors. She made for Jim at a dead run, reached him, caught at him, at Robbie, lifted some of the injured man's weight from Jim's shoulders; she pulled him, held him up. A hundred feet. Ninety. She could hear the chuffing breath of the infected behind them. Seventy feet. She was panting; Jim was, too: the air whistled in his throat. Thirty feet. Ten feet, there suddenly, and Jim pushed her hard at the chopper, just as the skids lifted from the sand. Piotr caught her sweater and arms, hoisted her in. Jim heaved; Robbie fell onto the deck beside her. Piotr reached down and grabbed Jim's reaching hand. "Hannah: go! Go!"

Jim's side caught the skid as his feet left the sand; he grunted in pain, his body swinging in the air. Infected snarled beneath him, leaped upward. Clawing fingertips brushed his boots, fell away. Piotr nearly pitched forward, out the door; Laurel grabbed him unceremoniously by the waist of his flight suit and threw her weight back. Just enough, just enough: Piotr balanced backward and hauled, and Jim came through the door and landed on the deck, on Selena and Robbie.

The Bell was swinging out to sea. Piotr steadied himself, panting. He slid the door shut, picked his way past the tangle of legs and arms and torsos on the deck, went to the cockpit.

Jim lay with his head on Selena's sweatered heaving back. His chest rose and fell with her breathing. He heard Hannah shout, above the engines: "All aboard--?"

"All aboard, yes." Piotr, shouting back, good naturedly. He entered the cockpit, continued more quietly: "Go to autopilot, please, Hannah. That switch-- just there--"

Jim pushed himself off of Selena; she pushed up from the deck. Beside them, Laurel was kneeling with Robbie, helping him right himself. He twisted, reached for the metal shaft sticking from his leg. Selena said, breathless: "Leave it."

Robbie and Laurel looked at her, painfully and frowning, respectively. Selena gestured aft. To Laurel, she said, "There's a medical kit back there. Get it, please."

Laurel left Robbie, went aft. Selena let her pass. Then she swung on Jim.

"You don't ever do that," she said tightly. Her eyes were furious. "You don't ever bloody do that, Jim. What the hell were you thinking--?"

"He needed help-- What the hell was I supposed t' do? Leave 'im there?"

"Yes. No--" She shoved a hand into her hair; she met Robbie's shocked, helpless eyes, looked away. "_Christ,_ Jim--!"

"Well, I am grateful nonetheless," Robbie said quietly. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Jim said.

Robbie fixed his sapphire eyes on Selena. "I am sincerely sorry for upsetting you--"

"You want to shut up. He's worth twenty-- _thirty_ of you."

"I don't doubt that for a moment."

She glared at him. "You are bloody _deadweight--_!"

He half-frowned, plainly hurt. "I like that very much, I must say--"

Laurel was there now, clutching the medical kit to her chest. She stared at Selena, anger and fear and shock all blended in her brown eyes. Selena shot her her own parcel of glare, looked back at Robbie. "Shut up, then. Just bloody well shut up--!"

"Selena--" Jim could hear it in her voice: she was that close to tears. He reached for her; she nearly slapped his hand. Jim caught her hand, held it tightly. He pulled her close, tipped his head to hers, put an arm around her shaking shoulders.

For a long moment, she reluctantly shared his space. He waited, gently rubbed her back. "I couldn't shoot," she said, finally, very quietly. He only just heard her above the engines. "Piotr told me to cover you. I've never fired a gun before, never, and I couldn't do it--"

Jim kissed her forehead. "Well, then, I for one am glad you weren't shootin'."

She frowned at him. "You're saying I can't?"

He smiled, a little bewildered. "You just said you couldn't."

Robbie, watching them, let his own frown become wry. "Is this the post-apocalyptic version of 'Does this dress make me look fat?'?"

"Shut up." But Selena's expression was softer now. She eased away from Jim, held a hand out to Laurel. "Kit, please."

"Sure." Laurel passed her the kit, knelt again next to Robbie. "I understand it, you bein' mad--"

"No, I was hyper and scared, and I was being a full-on bitch." Selena looked at her directly. "I'm sorry." She repeated it for Robbie: "Sorry, yeah?"

He smiled. "Accepted."

"Good. Make yourself flat, then. On your stomach and lie still."

Robbie placed himself belly-down on the Bell's vibrating deck. Selena unclasped the medical kit, dug, came up with a small shining pair of scissors. She examined the metal bolt, felt carefully the point on Robbie's leg where bolt met bloody denim and flesh. He flinched.

"Sorry," Selena said. She touched his shoulder gently. "Robbie, I'm going to cut your trouser leg away from the wound. Then I'm going to clean things up, stabilize the dart-- the bolt-- whatever it is--"

He twisted his head, trying to look behind him. "Can't you pull it out--? Why can't you--?"

"I'm not a doctor, yeah--? I'm only a chemist. There's an artery back there, veins. Tendons. I could do you some real damage, pullin' it out. We stabilize it now-- we stabilize it, that's all. Then, when we get to the platform, they'll have a doctor. A real doctor. He'll know what t' do. Doesn't seem to be bleeding all that much, so you should be okay. We'll get you cleaned up, keep you warm. You'll be fine."

"My leg-- Why is it numb, then--?"

"They were runnin' a livestock ship, right--?" Selena began to cut, carefully, as she talked. "So they probably had vet supplies on board. My guess is they tipped this thing with Rompun. Xylazine. Animal tranquilizer. Not enough t' kill you, just enough t' slow you down. Make you easier to catch." She set aside the scissors, reached back to the kit. Jim and Laurel watched her work, cleaning away blood, bandaging, taping. She finished; she placed a palm on Robbie's cheek, on his forehead; she took and held his wrist, concentrated, counted silently. "You're not hot. You're not cold or clammy. Your pulse is a little fast, but that's to be expected." She looked up at her audience. "Jim, would you see if there's a blanket in back--?"

"Sure thing."

He went aft. Foreward, Hannah appeared in the divide between the passenger compartment and the Bell's cockpit. She surveyed the gathering, said: "Piotr wants t' know, did the call get made?"

Robbie rolled cautiously onto his side, looked up. "I'm happy to say it did." He smiled at her. "Hello. I'm Robbie. That's Laurel. We're stowaways."

Hannah grinned back at him. "I'm Hannah." She beamed at Jim as he returned to the group with a green rough blanket. "Hey, Jim, that was me: I flew th' chopper, yeah--?"

"Good job, then, Hannah."

He passed the blanket to Laurel, who smoothed it over Robbie's torso and legs. Robbie watched Hannah return to the cockpit. His smile went a bit dubious.

"If that isn't the cherry on top of a perfect day. She's not flying us _now,_ is she--?"

Laurel settled in next to him, cradled his head in her lap, smoothed his hair. "Oh, shut it, yeh great chicken."

Jim smiled, looking over. He sat himself next to Selena, opposite the other two; he let himself go quiet, let the last of the adrenaline drain from his system. He pulled his knees up, leaned against the cabin wall.

Selena, hugging her legs to her own chest, said: "You, too, Jim."

"What's that, love--?"

"I'm sorry I went off on you."

"It's alright. Really."

"You're sure--?"

He released his knees, put an arm around her. "Really."

"Good." She relaxed into him. The Bell flew on. The sky through the windscreen was a high clear blue. They passed over low rough mountains, over lowlands deep green and burlap brown. Robbie slept; the rest of them dozed or were simply quiet. Jim found himself beginning to love or at least to trust the Bell's motion, the simple, strong, driving vibration moving up through his bones. They soared out over Scotland's northernmost coast, flew over gray-blue sea. Fine ripples ran landward in windblown sheets; farther out, the water puckered into waves.

Beside him, Selena shifted, chuckled. "Typical man."

Jim tipped his head closer to hers. "Pardon--?"

"You were stealing condoms." She shook her head. "_Condoms,_ Jim. Of all the-- Typical man. Typical."

Next to her, Jim felt his cheeks go warm. He steadied himself, spoke quietly: "I don't want to be a typical man. I want to be _your_ man. Someday. If you'll have me."

Selena smiled, shyly. "Is that a proposition or a proposal--?"

He felt it even though they were touching sweater to sweater, even though his hand was on and not beneath the pebbled soft knit on her shoulder; he felt it as the gentlest of electrical currents, tingling from his skin to hers and back again. She wasn't meeting his eyes, but he didn't mind.

"Little bit of both, I guess," he said softly.

* * *

As the Bell passed the Shetlands, a quiet hour or so after Robbie and Jim and Selena's desperate chase, John Isaacs stepped onto the paving at the south end of Preneen's one street. Behind him, on the packed white sand of the beach, stood a shiny blue-and-white Bell 214 and two men armed with machine pistols. Isaacs looked about. No bodies on the beach. No bodies belonging to anyone he cared to find, anyway. Zombies, zombie bits and chunks, that was all. And no charred, wrecked Bell 212. He took out his phone.

* * *

Thirty miles northwest of the Shetland Islands, roughly eighty feet above the gray-blue waters of the North Sea, a phone rang. In the white-walled common room known less-than-creatively as the Personal Communications Center, or Pee Cee Central to those dawdling, researching, or recreating on the den's public-use computers, a slender long-boned Chinese woman looked up from a monitor and the chessboard it displayed. She frowned; she pushed up out of her chair, crossed the room to the phone. "_Puffin Three,_ Dr. Huelsmann speaking."

* * *

Ten seconds later, in a room of roaring black-greased machinery, an intercom let out a buzz like a dropped chainsaw. A wiry man of dark hair and intense homeliness punched the response button on the yellow box. "Machine room, Chaney here." 

_Hey, Leo, it's Doc. Is McCrea there?_

"He's fishin' off Leg Four with Doug."

_Can you buzz him? He's got a call._

"Will do. Chaney out."

* * *

Where the gray slapping sea met metal, on a narrow platform encircling the base of a massive tower, two men in parkas stood fishing with heavy composite rods. A city loomed fifty feet above their heads: the sun cast squared pockets of light down to the dark water through breaks in the drilling platform known as the _Puffin Three_. 

A beeping in a parka pocket. The taller of the two men braced the butt of his fishing rod on the steel platform. "McCrea here."

_Chaney. Doc says you've got a call._

He had a thin, angular face, Jason McCrea did. Nearly colorless eyes. He smiled coolly. "That so? Why couldn't Doc tell me that?"

_Have t' ask her that, won'tcha? Chaney out._

McCrea pocketed his walkie-talkie, reeled in his line. "Keep an eye out for pirates, Dougie. I am wanted on the bitch box."

"Lucky you." Doug Pickford, small, strongly built, smiled below his thin mustache. "Want me to mind your line?"

"Naw." McCrea cast away his bait. "Nothin' out here but barnacles today anyway." He rounded the platform to a steel ladder bolted to the tower's inward side, started to climb.

* * *

In the _Puffin_'s control room, seventy feet off the water on the platform's west side, Larry Dalton pushed his chair back from the communications board. He was a thickset man with a broad, friendly face, thick brows. "Second outside call today, Virg. How many we need to make 'switchboard' status?" 

The Virg to whom he spoke was Virgil Cooper, the _Puffin_'s toolpusher, a tall, lean, fair-haired man with eyes the color of the surrounding ocean. "More'n that," Cooper said drily. He, like Dalton, had listened to the exchange between Doctor Huelsmann and Leo Chaney, between Chaney and Jason McCrea. The intercom calls all channeled through the rig's brain booth. Nothing sinister about it: simply a matter of safety and practicality. It made good sense to know where the _Puffin_'s workers were and what was going on around them. Cooper checked gauges, displays, looked out at the North Sea beneath its rare blue sky. Clouds were rolling up in the distance, well to the west. "Should be fair enough weather for Pete to get here. Tomorrow, though: think the _Helvig_'s in for a blow. Larry, you wanna make sure those cranes are clear of the chopper pad."

"Sure thing, Virg."

* * *

In Pee Cee Central, Jason McCrea shrugged out of his parka. "Who is it, sweetie?" 

Dr. Huelsmann kept her dark eyes on her chess game. "I'm a doctor, not a switchboard."

"Could've fooled me. Something that rhymes with 'switch,' anyway."

"Y'know, I could kill you." She saved her game, got up. "But, on the off chance you _are_ human, it might go against my Hippocratic oath."

"She's a funny, funny woman, is our Tamara." McCrea stepped aside, only just let her pass. Dr. Huelsmann glared at him, left the room. He waited until she was well away, spoke into the satellite handset: "McCrea here."

_John Isaacs. Hey, bro._

"Hey yourself, Johnny. What's up?"

_How'd you like to make a cool million--?_


	9. Chapter 8

A city rose from the sea.

The _Puffin Three _was a fortress of girders, tanks, towering piping, slanting necks of cranes. She was an unsunken Atlantis as envisioned during a semi-grimy petrochemical age. She stood nearly sixty feet off the gray-blue sea on six round massive legs; her height, from her red grated decks to the tip of her tallest primer-gray stack, was nearly a hundred and ninety feet. Her crew's quarters, mess, leisure rooms, and medical facilities hung like big flat-blue boxes off her eastern side, strung to one another with catwalks and steel stairs. Piotr steered the Bell toward the helicopter pad above the housing modules, eighty-five feet off the water on the _Puffin_'s north-east corner. The pad was painted white; the Bell's skids touched down on a chopper-sized blue star.

As the rotors slowed, a woman in a red down jacket and three men in coveralls came up stairs on the pad's west side. They waited just below the pad until the chopper's moving parts were utterly still. Piotr climbed from the cockpit as they stepped up level with the Bell.

"Hello, Virgil," he called.

"Piotr. Good flight, I hope." The foremost of the men, a fellow nearly as tall as Piotr, fair-haired, weathered, came forward, shook Piotr's hand.

"Smooth weather from the coast, yes."

"You said you have a wounded man," said the woman with the group. She was striking, Asian. Her black hair, pony-tailed, flicked in the breeze. She looked at Jim sharply as he jumped from the chopper. "You--?"

"No," said Robbie, hobbling to the Bell's side door. "Me."

"Do you need a stretcher?" Her voice was deep, American.

Robbie looked out at the two burly fellows standing with her, at the edge of the chopper pad behind them, the narrow railing at the downward-leading stairs, the vertiginous drop beyond.

"A hand'll do, thanks."

"This is Dr. Huelsmann," said the man fair-haired and weathered. "I'm Virgil Cooper. I'm the toolpusher here." He nodded to Dr. Huelsmann. "You want to see to him, Tammy, and I'll have a word with 'em after. Okay?"

"Sounds good, Virg." Huelsmann gave Robbie a brief but thorough look; seemingly assured of his stability, she stood aside for her assistants. "Help him downstairs, guys."

Down the steel stairs they went, the newcomers holding tight to the side railings and most of them avoiding the view down the sheer drop to the rippling flat-blue sea; down they went into the human areas of the rig, Dr. Huelsmann, Robbie and the men helping him, Laurel, Selena, and Jim: the steel stairs led to a deck roughly fifteen feet square, with double doors on their left; through the doors was a yellow-walled entrance area and two halls, one leading straight ahead, the second leading to the right. The _Puffin_'s medic preceded her burly entourage and their small Scottish burden down the right-hand hall, past a room of personal computers, to the rig's sickbay, very modern, capacious, shining. There, his escorts helped Robbie onto an examination table and excused themselves; Dr. Huelsmann finished the maiming Selena had begun on Robbie's jeans, gave him a local, removed the bolt from his leg-- no backward-barbed head on the thing, thank God, no severing of tendons or arteries-- and stitched and bandaged the wound, asking questions of Selena while she worked. Laurel stood off to the side, out of the way but near enough to offer Robbie verbal support and empathetic looks; Jim hung back.

"This should heal well," Dr. Huelsmann told Robbie. "Be easy on it for a few days. Shower around it today; have the medic on the _Helvig_ check it tomorrow."

She helped Robbie off the table. Before Laurel moved in to offer him an arm, she passed by Jim, quietly pressed something into his hand.

* * *

After he and Hannah secured the Bell, Piotr sought out Cooper. She went with him, stood back as he and the _Puffin_'s toolpusher entered an office near the mess.

Cooper led off by giving her a stony glance; he asked Piotr: "Who is she?"

"My co-pilot."

If Cooper's look had been rocky, Piotr's would have outmassed half the Urals. Cooper stopped trying to outglare him, finally grinned over at Hannah.

"Hey, there. Sorry." He held out his hand. "I'm Virg."

"Hannah." She smiled back at him, shook his hand.

"You're one of Pete's refugees, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir."

Cooper looked back at Piotr. "The guy who called said you had three."

"We picked up two more. Infected overran their town."

"We've heard of guys running boats full of 'em," Cooper said grimly. "Using 'em like weapons--"

"That's what it was," said Hannah. "From the air, that's what we saw."

"That ain't right. Indecent, that's what it is. They're dangerous bastards, those infected, but hell, they're still people. Sick people." Cooper frowned, shook his head. "We haven't had trouble here, but there've been rigs hit, too. Pretty much sitting ducks, what with the no-guns policy. Can't do a thing to protect ourselves."

"Will you be evacuating?" Piotr asked.

"Not until the word comes down. Bosses think your navy can keep us safe." He looked at Piotr, his brows coming down lower over his sea-gray eyes. "That said, that's a stolen chopper, Pete. Your message didn't say anything about that. Can't say I approve. Can't say Andersen'll approve, either."

"It was an emergency." Piotr stiffened across the shoulders. "I need to ask-- despite its being stolen-- do I have permission to refuel?"

Cooper paused. He looked, thought Hannah, honestly apologetic. "Kind of embarrassing, this being an oil rig, but we're running short on aviation fuel."

"How much can you spare, Virgil?"

"Ninety gallons. Maybe ninety-five."

"That's less than an hour's flight time--"

"I'm sorry, Pete. One area the Danes haven't been keeping up on. Our people either. Last chopper here had to fly back out on its reserve tanks. Like I said, damn embarrassing, but there you have it. Shouldn't be needing that much anyway, just to make a jump to the _Helvig_. Right?"

"Right," Piotr said quietly. An uncertain quiet, not his usual stoic one. Hannah could already tell the difference. "Thank you, Virgil."

"Welcome to it, Pete." Cooper patted him on the shoulder. Then he looked at Hannah. "Let's round up the rest of you. Got a few rules you need to know."

* * *

As Piotr went off to claim his fuel, Cooper met the remainder of his guests as they left the sickbay. He administered the rig's house rules in the entryway just outside the mess.

He was well taller than any of them; he had no trouble looking authoritative. But Selena could sense he wasn't entirely comfortable speaking to strangers. Might be why he was a foreman out in the middle of the ocean.

"First off, no weapons," Cooper said. "That means especially--" and he cleared his throat-- "that damn cannon one of you brought along." (A twitch from Laurel, a corresponding smirk from Robbie.) "No smoking, except in the designated smoking room--" (And this time it was Robbie who flinched, and in a manner that suggested smoking had until that moment been most distant from his mind.) "--You're free to move about the rig, only stay outside any areas lined in red and stay inside the yellow lines everywhere else. Would prefer you wear environment suits on deck, but you're not employees; we can't force you to. Safer moving in pairs. Use your common sense by the railings. Sea's about fifty degrees Fahrenheit, so if you fall in and the fall doesn't kill you, you've got about fifteen minutes before hypothermia turns you to lead and you sink." He scratched behind his right ear. "Think that's about it."

"Done with the pep talk, boss?" Dr. Huelsmann passed behind him, leaned into the doorway leading straight back from the outer entrance.

"Yep." Cooper nodded his visitors in her direction. "Doctor Huelsmann's acting steward. She'll get you oriented. Welcome to the _Puffin Three_."

He went through them and back out the outer doors. "This way," said Huelsmann. They followed her into the _Puffin_'s mess. It looked eminently different than Selena had imagined a rig mess looking: it was large and airy and well lit, with seating for possibly three dozen people at tables seating four apiece; on the left, there was a long buffet counter with a window opening onto the kitchen beyond. Ahead of them, across the room, a television hung from a ceiling bracket. Against the wall behind it stood-- of all things-- a jukebox, an old-style curve-top Wurlitzer, its arches glowing in gold and red. Selena nudged Jim, tipped her head toward it. He nodded back.

"Surreal enough--?" he asked softly.

"It'll do."

Huelsmann was looking toward the kitchen. "Edie, you dead back there?"

"Nope. Just doing the work of many men." From the kitchen came a short, solid woman in jeans and an off-white heavy apron and a blue-checked flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. She had reddish-brown hair worn short and keen blue eyes. The right one lazed a bit toward her nose, but that only seemed to make her look more focused. "Hello, there."

"Edie Irving, cook, meet our prisoners. Prisoners, meet our cook," said Dr. Huelsmann. "Our Miss Irving is almost toxically cheerful. Be warned."

"Side effect of being a token Canadian," said Edie. She surveyed them with a smile. "If you were planning to starve here, you're out of luck. Dinner's at six. We're having lasagna tonight. In the meantime, there's pancakes and sausage left over from breakfast, fixings for sandwiches--"

Behind Edie, Selena spotted something on the buffet: a big steel bowl. She breathed out: "Jesus, look: oranges."

She looked beseechingly at the _Puffin_'s cook and token Canadian; Edie Irving finished, amiably: "--and oranges, too. Help yourselves."

A stampede for the buffet. Laurel and Robbie weren't immune. They and Selena and Hannah and Jim went at the citrus bowl like, well, like people who hadn't seen fresh fruit in quantity for over a month.

"You're supposed t' peel these, right--?" asked Jim, eyes bright, holding up a navel beauty. Selena smiled over at him, pulling skin from a grapefruit. Hannah plinked him with a chunk of orange rind.

"Well, they're easy to please," said Edie to the _Puffin_'s medic.

Huelsmann gave them ten minutes to snag pulp in their teeth, render their fingers and chins sticky, and get rind dug in under their nails. Then she walked her freshly fruit-scented charges back to the _Puffin_'s living areas. They trailed after her through the mess into a rec room with gym equipment, a pool table, another television, this one with a VCR; beyond the television, a doorway opened onto a narrow pale-yellow hall with doors spaced evenly along its walls.

"Crew quarters are through here," she said. "Normally, we bunk up to four to a cabin, but we're running sub-skeletal right now. Crew of thirty-eight. So you're pretty much free to pick your rooms. There are four cabin hallways. Just make sure you're oriented in relation to the mess. That's the meeting area in case of emergency. Each cabin has a washbasin and head, but the shower rooms are separate. Three male, one female, six stalls to a room, end of each hall. Water filtration's fully operational, and I just checked the bacteria screens and the desalinization units this morning, so there's no shortage of hot and cold." To the girls, she said: "Clean clothes you can borrow off of me or Edie. You guys--" -- to Jim and Robbie-- "-- you're pretty close to Leo's size. Leo Chaney, one of the mechanics. I'll get him in here. He'll fix you up."

They split up at the shower rooms, which had benches running up their centers and lockers recessed in their walls. Jim went for a quick cleaning in a private steel-walled stall. Out of curiosity, he caught a few drops of spray on his tongue: not a trace of salt; if anything, the taste was almost too flat. When he emerged, wrapped in a towel, a man was laying clothes on the center bench. He was wiry, average in height; his hair was short and dark; and he was magnificently homely. More politely, he had a face of great character, well lined, a sober set to his mouth. He glanced at Jim with deep brown eyes, looked quickly away again, as though seeing a stranger in a towel were a breach of protocol.

"Tammy said you'd appreciate some clothes. I'll leave you to it." He gestured at the things he'd laid out, went to the door. "There's a toothbrush and a razor there, too, in case you want 'em. I'm Chaney. Leo. Welcome aboard--"

"Jim. Thank you."

"--Jim. You're welcome."

He left. Jim dried and dressed himself. He kept the cargo trousers from Infinity, but he traded his gray army sweater for a worn blue sweatshirt. Out into the hall he went; near the shower room, he looked into an empty bunkroom, its door standing open. Spacious-- not the submarine-crew-style quarters he'd been imagining. Nightstand with a digital clock, dresser, a polished steel lamp bolted to the wall next to each bunk. He stepped in, looked at one of the made-up bunkbeds, decided to try it-- just a try, understand. He stretched out, put his head on the pillow, and fell instantly and deeply asleep.

Selena, en route to the women's shower room, glanced in through the open door: she saw him sprawled there looselimbed and sleeping, smiled, paused, and passed on. She had her shower; for afterward, she had an assortment of necessaries and sensible wearables from Doctor Huelsmann, who matched her lankiness almost inch for inch. Hannah and Robbie and Laurel had returned to the PC lab off the medical center, the two from Preneen wondering if they could get e-mails off to their parents. Piotr, according to Hannah, was off in the control room at the rig's western end with Dalton, the _Puffin_'s comptroller, cementing details of tomorrow's pickup with the _Helvig_ via the _Puffin_'s marine radio. Practically part of society again, weren't they? Hard to believe anything sinister could go on here, amid the rig's homely bustle. Cooper seemed a decent man, Huelsmann a very decent, if disgruntled, woman. Edie Irving, as open and friendly a person as Selena had ever seen, had hinted at a story backing that discontent. Selena smiled, toweling her hair. Gossip. They'd rejoined civilization, and that was a fact.

When she left the shower room, she saw a man in the hall ahead, looking into the cabin in which she'd seen Jim asleep. He was dark-haired, about six feet tall, thin, dressed in blue coveralls.

Selena said clearly: "Can I help you? Has he taken your room?"

He turned, watched her approach. He had nearly colorless eyes. He fixed them on her with an interest that made her uncomfortable.

"Nope. Just trying to figure out if I know him. I don't." He smiled at her. His smile made her uncomfortable, too. It hadn't been nearly long enough since a man had looked at her that way. "Don't know you, either. I'm Jason. Jason McCrae."

It was only polite: she shook his offered hand. "Selena."

His smile deepened. "So who's the lucky guy?"

"Pardon?"

"You're giving off a real engagement-ring vibe."

Selena frowned for him. "Handy, isn't it--?"

"Isn't it." His eyes, she thought, would look not at all out of place in a crocodile's sockets. He nodded, without looking, toward Jim, who was still flat on his back and by all appearances still peacefully napping. "Him?"

"Yeah."

"Like I said: lucky guy. Catch you later, Selena."

"Sure."

She felt him look her up and down as he passed her, walking off. She shuddered, scowled. Lewd stares from a gang of army crazies aside, had it really been only two months since her last legitimate ogling? She was well out of practice; just eight minutes out of the shower, and here she was feeling grimy, a bit used.

She brought her resentments with her into the bunkroom. Then she looked at Jim, focused on his stillness, and her irritation flashed into something like panic-- _He'd been looking at Jim first off, not at me, McCrae had_--

Jim grunted softly in his sleep, rolled onto his side, sighed. He punched absently at his pillow and slumbered on.

Selena released the breath she'd been holding. "Paranoia, girl," she murmured. "It'll keep you alive-- if it doesn't drive you utterly bloody nuts first."

That said, a nap suddenly seemed a very attractive idea. Hannah knew roughly where she and Jim were; if nothing else, Selena was certain she could count on Piotr to keep the girl clear of reptiles like McCrea for the space of an hour. So up she went, climbing the steel tube frame, onto the bunk above Jim's. She lay back, listened for and heard his breathing. She put her hands palm-up beneath her head on the white pillowcase and closed her eyes.

* * *

Jim woke. According to the clock, he'd been out for just under three hours. He wandered back to the mess. Warm, wonderful cooking odors met him midway, drew him along, his stomach rumbling. Selena. who'd swapped her gray sweater for a long black sweatshirt, was standing just inside the doorway leading from the residence hall to the rec room. She glanced at him as he came in.

"Have a nice sleep?"

Jim stretched his shoulders, smiled. "Yeah."

"Good timing, too. Right in time for dinner. I was just coming to get you."

"How've you been keepin'?"

"Had a nap myself. Then Mr. Chaney gave me and Hannah a tour, a short one."

"That nap-- Y'know, you might've joined me."

"You were so quiet, I took the bunk above. Didn't want to bother you."

"Maybe later, then--?"

"Maybe." She smiled, her eyes amber-warm. "Come on, let's eat."

* * *

A scene so normal-- so homey and normal: dinner in the bright clean mess. Edie Irving had laid out food enough for at least fifty people. Four huge pans of lasagna sat on the buffet, flanked by bowls of salad, stacks of toast. Behind Jim and Selena in the chow line, a brick-solid man with a broad, friendly face scooped a layered sloppy slab of noodles onto his plate. "Didn't you get the memo, Edie? We're running with a crew of thirty-eight now."

Irving brushed past him with a tray of clean flatware. "My math's awful, Larry. Can't adjust recipes to save my life. That's why I cook for mobs." She winked at Jim, who was helping himself to toast. "Anyway, I thought our guests looked hungry."

He and Selena found themselves seats at a table with Hannah. Robbie and Laurel, one table over, were already eating. They looked up, waved. Hannah, who had cleared at least one plate of lasagna, was now acting the part of a human composting machine with regard to a mound of greens.

"Too bad you're feelin' only peckish," Jim said.

Hannah picked lettuce from her teeth with her tongue, reached for a glass of water standing to the right of her plate. "Shut it, yeah?"

Jim smirked, started eating. A moment later, big Larry, full plate in hand, paused at their table. Hannah glanced up, smiled. He smiled back, surveyed Jim and Selena. "Hannah I've met," he said. "I'm Larry Dalton, the _Puffin_'s controller. You must be Jim."

Jim wiped his fingers on a paper napkin and reached to shake Dalton's hand. He spoke around a mouthful of lasagna: "How're yeh?"

"You'll have to excuse him; he's from Deptford." Selena grinned wryly, got a handshake of her own. "I'm Selena."

"Larry. Glad to know you. Enjoy your stay." Dalton nodded around the table, then took his plate and went to join Cooper, Chaney, and Dr. Huelsmann, sitting three tables over. Robbie, watching good-naturedly, motioned him in as he passed, introduced himself and Laurel. Minutes later, Piotr entered the mess. He obtained for himself a mountain of food and set it on the tabletop across from Selena, between Hannah and Jim. He seated himself, shrugged at their stares.

"We have very little lasagna in Denmark," he said.

* * *

After dinner, those of the _Puffin_'s evening shift excused themselves, went out onto the rig. Over Edie's protests, Selena and Hannah and Jim helped with the clearing up. Cooper and Dalton went off toward Cooper's office, talking. Dr. Huelsmann and Chaney took mugs of coffee into the rec room. Robbie and Laurel checked out the jukebox.

"What kind of nutter loaded this thing?" Robbie scowled at the Wurlitzer's offerings. "Do you know any of these songs--?"

"Try that one." Laurel pointed at a title card. "That one there."

Robbie punched a button. A click, a pause. And then-- three-quarter time. Fiddles. Accordians. And Deborah Harry's voice, blowsy and brassy, singing out: "I wake up laughin'/Thrown from a nightmare--"

Laurel stared at the Wurlitzer. "What in th' hell is that--?"

_I come down standin'/When I'm tossed in the air--_

"It says 'Blondie' on the selector."

"That's not bloody 'Heart of Glass.' It's a bloody country-western song, for Christ's sake."

Robbie scratched at his cropped reddish hair. "Don't I bloody know it. I'm not deaf."

"Don't be tauntin' th' tune-box, boy." One of the last remaining second-shifters, a man roughly a foot taller than Robbie, bumped by with a stack of dirty plates for the bus tray. He wore the coveralls of a rigworker, and his hair was a wild pepper-and-salt tangle. He fixed Robbie with wry, glittering eyes under dense black brows. "Property o' Miss Whitby here, it is."

He slapped the shoulder of a short, coveralled woman with cropped brown hair who was parking her own dirties. She nodded at Robbie and Laurel. "Hi, there." Then the wildman and she and a second man, sandy-haired, younger, and more neatly trimmed than the first, bellowed their way out of the mess with Miss Harry's help: "I come out shootin'/When trouble comes knockin'--"

"Therapy, please," said Robbie.

"--I greet bad news/By sendin' it walkin'--"

Off to the side, Jim touched Selena's hand. "Would yeh care t' dance?"

Out the outer door, and still too loud: "Happy or just crazy/Relaxed or lazy/Gonna keep my vision hazy--"

Selena closed her fingers around his. "I'd love to, yes."

Jim smiled, drew her close, and led her into a waltz.

From the jukebox and from the stairs outside, descending, fading but not quite swallowed by the deep thrumming of machinery: "And the dream's lost on me--"

"Actually, it's growin' on me," said Laurel.

Robbie looked hopeless. "Alright, then." He held out his arms, and she stepped into them, swayed with him into the rhythm. He flinched. "Gently, gently: I'm wounded, remember--"

Across the room, Piotr Kalinovich, the same brave young Russian who had fought and killed a rabidly infected co-pilot, who had engineered a daring escape, and who had, just earlier that day, piloted a crippled helicopter out of the path of a giant fireball at an exploding airbase, looked at the dancing pairs, looked at Hannah, mumbled something about re-checking the skid-locks on the Bell, grabbed his jacket, and went out the door.

"Chicken," Hannah muttered.

"Oh, he'll be back," said Edie Irving, behind her, from the kitchen window. "It's nearly time for dessert. Found enough apples to make pie. Care to help me dish it up?"

"Sure." Hannah smiled, boosted herself out of her chair, and followed Edie into the stainless steel reaches of the _Puffin_'s kitchen.

* * *

The pie was just sweet enough, just tart enough, the apples Granny Smith and fulfilling perfectly the only role for which their ill-tempered lime-green selves were suited. Post-pie, the _Puffin_'s refugees went for a cold breath of fresh air and a look at the lingering daylight. This far north, Edie told them, the midsummer sun wouldn't set 'til after ten. It was just past nine. The sun was hesitating over a bank of clouds to the west; the wind pushed waves toward them from the horizon.

Jim, in a borrowed coat, looked out over the water and shivered. "It's cold."

Too open, too wild as well. Selena preferred a wilderness of paving and buildings. Beautiful but too trackless, this. She slipped her arm through his. "Come on. Let's go in."

"Saw where the movies are hidden," Robbie was saying. He and Laurel made for a cabinet on the south wall of the rec room. Chaney was talking to Hannah, and she was laughing at what he was saying. Good to see, that. Dr. Huelsmann, having conjured another tune from the Wurlitzer-- it sounded like Bruce Springsteen, but he was singing a folk song, for heaven's sake-- was refilling her coffee.

Selena lingered, wandered away. She drew Jim with her into the corridor just beyond the rec room. They stood for a moment in the dimmer light, looking back at the brightness, the movement, listening to the music and talk. Selena could feel her heart beating. Jim watched her peripherally; she could sense the light from his eyes, a pressure light as thought on her skin. Finally she moved in, nuzzled his throat.

"Why don't you show me what you looted?" she asked quietly.

He nuzzled back. He'd managed a shave, by the feel of it. His skin was smooth and warm. "What I--"

"From the store."

"Oh, you mean the, umm--"

"Yeah."

He was touching her with his hands now, caressing her cheeks, her neck. "I gave 'em back," he said softly.

"Jim--!"

"It was stealing, Selena. You as much as said--"

"I don't believe it--"

He nodded, his face angelically sober. "That's good."

Selena broke away, stood beside him muttering. "We've been-- Weeks, we've been waiting-- _I'v_e been waiting-- and you gave them--" She paused, frowned. "That's _good_? How is that good--? Oh." She elbowed him; Jim winced, laughing. "You, Jim, are a sad, sorry excuse for a man."

"Mm hm. I am that." He turned to her, caught her near the hips, gently but firmly. He nuzzled his way to her mouth and kissed her. Selena followed the draw of his hands, pressed up to him. She met him in another kiss, another kiss after that. Jim broke for a moment, murmuring, "Laurel said we could keep 'em."

Selena bristled. "_Laurel_ said--?"

"Yeah. The two of us." His lips brushed hers. "For services rendered."

"I'll render your services." Her breath was becoming a bit rough. His was, too. She removed herself from his arms, caught his hand, matched the love in his eyes with the love in her own. She drew him toward the bunkrooms, smiling. "Come on. Come on, come on--"

* * *

Laurel spotted them going off together down the quiet hallway; Robbie, reading titles on a row of VHS tapes, didn't quite see. Hannah and Chaney had just engaged Huelsmann in an old-fashioned game of Battleship, their board red, hers blue.

Laurel asked Robbie: "Anything worth seein'?"

He kept his voice low: "If you're a fan of ancient history. I don't think there's a single one post-dating the Second World War--"

"Come and play Battleship then, malcontent," Huelsmann said. "I have to be up at five." She stood, surrendered the blue board. Robbie took her place, Laurel in tow.

Said the doctor: "Goodnight, everyone. Nice to meet you."

Unsure of the sincerity of the second sentence, Laurel said her goodnight after Robbie's; still, she saw Huelsmann smile ever so slightly as she nodded toward Chaney.

"'Night, Leo."

"Sleep tight, Doc." Chaney waited as she walked off. Then he fixed Robbie with his black-brown eyes. "You up for absolute defeat, kid?"

"Absolute defeat: one of my specialties." Robbie surveyed the pattern of pegs and gray plastic boats on his and Laurel's fold-up board. "How are we doing so far?"

"Leaking and limping, by the look of it," said Laurel.

"Oh, that's just me. How's our _fleet_--?"

Chaney laughed, and looked like a friendly gargoyle doing it. Hannah scanned the room. "Did Selena and Jim pack it in, then?"

Laurel exchanged a cocked brow with Robbie; he nodded her on. She said, "Think they did, yeah. They looked well tired, th' both of 'em--"

Hannah looked at her, looked at Robbie. She looked calmly back at the board. "You mean they're off for a shag."

Laurel felt herself go silently red. Robbie sputtered, burst out laughing.

"B-nine." Hannah fixed her eyes on them. "Well, they are, aren't they--?"

"You're remarkably, umm--" Robbie wrestled his dimples into submission. "--undisturbed by the idea."

"I've been livin' with 'em for a month, haven't I--?"

"B-nine," Chaney prompted.

"And that is-- That is a hit. Congratulations."

"Thanks." Hannah beamed, pressed a red peg into her and Chaney's marker board. "Been two weeks of it, at least, yeah? --them gettin' all gushy an' tryin' t' hide it, an' me pretendin' I can't _see_ 'em tryin' t' hide it--"

"Who is hiding what?" Piotr came up, radiating traces of cold. Laurel felt it, six feet away. The outside temperature had to be dropping quickly.

"Nothin'--" Abruptly, Hannah blushed. "How's th' chopper?"

"Fine." Piotr placed his hand on her shoulder. "I wanted to thank you for your help today."

_And adoration takes human form,_ thought Laurel, watching Hannah look up at him.

"You're welcome, yeah--?"

"Catch me; I feel faint," whispered Robbie.

Piotr looked out from Hannah to him and Laurel. "I will be bunking four doors off the recreation center, on the left. It might be best if we stay together. Goodnight."

"Think I've had enough for one day, too," said Chaney, getting up. He nudged Hannah. "Think you can take 'em, kid?"

"No doubt."

"Good. See ya in the morning."

He went off, past the room Piotr had chosen, well back down the bunk hall. Hannah watched him go.

"Sure you don't mind?" she asked.

"What--? Sharing a room with Piotr?" Laurel countered.

"Yeah."

"Frankly and absolutely, not at all." Robbie studied the pattern of hits on the vertical board before him. "Especially if it means Selena not killing us in the morning for leaving him to your tender mercies, missy."

"But, umm--"

"Think we've a blind chance just there." Laurel pointed at the marker board on her and Robbie's side. "'But, umm' what--?" she echoed amiably.

"Aren't you an' him--" Hannah nodded at Robbie. "You know."

"Not quite," said Laurel. "See, we-- he--"

"Let's put it this way--" said Robbie. "G-six."

"Miss. What?"

"Damn--" Robbie winced, smiled over at Hannah. "Me and Jim: in an instant. Me and Piotr: not quite my type."

Hannah's eyes widened. "Waitaminnit: you're--"

"Shh. This _is_ an oil rig, ducks."

"But I thought you an' her--" She pointed at Laurel.

"Nope. Sorry." Robbie leaned back in his chair, tipped his nape against the top. "The rebuilding and repopulating duties will fall squarely on others, I'm afraid. On our absent friends, for instance."

"Not t'night it won't," murmured Laurel. "Tonight they are free an' clear." She caught Robbie's quizzical look. "The johnnies, you dope. Of course I let him keep 'em--"

"B-ten," said Hannah. "That should be your destroyer gone."

"Hit and gone, indeed. Scourge of the bloody seas, y' are." Laurel plucked a gray plastic destroyer from the Scottish board, dropped it and its crest of red pegs to the metal tabletop. "I'm no savage, Robert. Looked like they had a break comin' to 'em."

"Well, then, here's to you, Saint Laurel of the Responsible Intimate Encounter." Robbie grinned, leaned forward, had another look at their peppered plastic fleet. "And to absent friends."

"And to makin' your move before we all turn t' skeletons sittin' here," said Hannah.

"Bloodthirsty British-- A-six."

"Miss, innit--?"

* * *

While the Scottish fleet took its tiny beating at the hands of a girl from London, Jason McCrae finished business near the mud room on the cellar deck of the _Puffin_. He sidestepped the watchstanders coming on duty, kept from the pools of light cast by the caged-bulb lamps bolted to the rig's steel skeleton. Kim Whitby, the _Puffin_'s remaining female mechanic, passed by with Rich Donnelly and Jeff Nelson in tow, the three of them snarking and sniping at one another on their way to the mud room, the ballast room, the central hydraulics room, the roomful of gauges off the idle wellhead. The rig might be on standby, but there remained plenty to monitor, especially with the crew reduced by nearly seventy percent. Fewer eyes to see him. McCrae stood in a pocket of shadow, watched the three retreating backs, the light glinting off hardhats. Then he made his way off the cellar deck, upward, well upward, all the way to the helicopter pad.

Just a quick errand. He stepped from the grated metal stairs onto the white solid deck. The Bell 212 stood there like a great dragonfly in its private pool of light, still and gleaming in the rising wind, its skids secure in their deckclamps. McCrae made for the cockpit door on the near side.

"Hey, Jason." Doug Pickford stepped suddenly into view from the Bell's seaward side. "What brings you up here?"

McCrae was nearly touching the Bell's door handle. He lowered his hand. "Evening, Doug. All quiet?"

"Sure." Pickford looked at McCrae, at the hand McCrae had just dropped to his side. He frowned, just a trace. "Told that Russian kid I'd spot him for a few hours. Don't think he's slept in days."

McCrae stepped away from the Bell. He felt Pickford watching him. He strolled to the edge of the pad, leaned against the steel fencing, facing into the wind blowing from the west. The last of the lingering dusk was gone, but he found himself looking after it. He knew that at night the _Puffin_, casting light from its stacks and cranes, seeping light from its living quarters and lower-deck working areas, looked like a castle suspended in space; tonight, the sky directly overhead was black velvet spackled with diamond flecks. From the nearing west, though, a rolling of clouds was snuffing stars by the wideflung handful. The wind was rising, the temperature falling. When he'd started on the night's tasks, he couldn't see his breath. He could see it now.

"It's gonna be a nasty one tomorrow," he said.

Pickford joined him. "Sure is. Don't need the weather page to know that. My knee's been aching all evening."

"Should have Doc look at that."

"And have her diagnose me with what? Weather knee?" He laughed, his easy, friendly laugh. McCrae joined him, kept his sound to a chuckle. He reached in his jacket pocket.

Pickford, looking out at the wind-puckered black sea, didn't hear the click of the blade lock. McCrae slipped an arm around his throat from behind, pulled him off balance, and punched him in the belly with the knife. One stab, two, three, four. He twisted the blade on the last one. Pickford stumbled against him, choking. His hands clawed at McCrae's clamping arm.

"Sorry, Dougie. Nothing personal."

He wrangled Pickford against the fence and shoved him up and over.

Pickford, flailing, gagging, fell away and down.

But not before his hand caught the shoulder of McCrae's jacket. Caught and held and pulled.

_This isn't right,_ thought McCrae, as his feet left the helicopter pad, as his stomach caught hard on the railing. He was looking into Pickford's dark, dying, betrayed eyes, and suddenly the air around them was cold and moving fast. _There's still the Bell. There's still Leg Two. There's still--_

The water came at them like a wall of black glass. Jason McCrae's back broke against it. His neck did, too.

_-- my easy million._

* * *

The Scottish fleet in ruins, Robbie, Laurel, and Hannah made their way to bed. First, though, they stopped off in the kitchen.

"If we're going to share a bunk room," said Robbie, opening steel cupboard doors and scanning contents, "we must have cocoa. It'll be absolutely like a prison melodrama that way."

"Robbie, you great fruit." Laurel turned jars, read labels. "Co-ed prison, hey?"

"Yes, pet. Only in civilized countries such as England they call it 'university.'"

Hannah popped the lid off a square tin, peered in. "Here we are," she said. "All we need's the sugar."

* * *

Four doors off the rec room to the left they went, Hannah bringing an extra mug of cocoa for Piotr. If he were sleeping, the other three of them could split it. He was in fact asleep when they trundled into the room, his big frame flat-out and fully dressed on the left-side lower bunk. But he woke when Hannah set the mug on the nightstand by his head; he saw and smiled sleepily and propped himself on an elbow, reaching for the ceramic handle. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, yeah?"

"Per suggestion, here we are, stickin' together," said Laurel.

Hannah sipped her cocoa. "What about Jim an' Selena--?"

"Oh," said Robbie, "I definitely think they're sticking together."

"Robbie, you pervert." Laurel knocked him in the arm, looking at the empty bunks. "So, how should we divvy this?"

Robbie showed his dimples. "Girls on top?"

"Sounds as it should be."

"And _I'm_ the pervert here--?"

"I was thinkin' of you an' your bad leg, yeh gimp. Hold this." She handed him her mug, clambered up onto the top bunk on the right-hand side of the room. "Give."

Robbie handed her her mug, seated himself on the bunk below hers. Hannah, mug in hand, climbed up above Piotr. A general rustling as bodies settled, as pillows and blankets were rearranged. Robbie took a good long drink of his cocoa, stretched out on his back, sighed.

"Oh," he said, "lights out--?"

"Leave one on," Laurel replied. "And let there be no sayin' of 'Goodnight, John-Boy.'"

"Yes, ma'am."

In semi-darkness, with only the light from Robbie's lamp remaining, they lay for maybe thirty seconds, sharing stillness. Then Piotr asked: "Who is 'John-Boy'?"

"I was wonderin' th' same thing," said Hannah.

Laurel kept quiet; Robbie intoned, "And she lies there, alone, in her cultural obsolescence."

"Shut it, Robert."

He chuckled; a moment passed. In Hannah's direction, he said, "Actually, I was wondering-- What's the story behind our Romeo and his very, _very_ intense Juliet?"

Hannah's voice, above him and to the left: "Are you askin' me?"

"I'm asking you, yes. Selena. Jim. There's something between them, isn't there? The way they act toward one another-- that scene in the chopper, back home on the beach: they didn't just meet one day on the tube, did they--?"

A muffled muttering from Laurel: "Oh, go t' sleep, Robbie."

"No, it's okay." Hannah paused. Robbie waited, listening. He supposed, from the quality of the silence, that Laurel and Piotr were listening, too. When Hannah spoke again, Robbie could hear her picturing places hundreds of miles away. People who'd died, her father among them. Lacunae of calm in a terrible adventure that had culminated in an abandoned hospital outside Manchester, she and Selena alone with Jim as he lay shot and dying on an operating table. She had a Londoner's flat voice, Hannah did; she had no trouble quelling her emotions as she spoke. Robbie, listening to her, felt his throat tighten.

"I think he was good with goin'," she said quietly, from the darkness. "You could see it in him, lyin' there. He looked so tired. She brought him back. Selena did. She was givin' him stuff, injections and such; she said later on that it was th' adrenaline that did it--"

"But you think not," Robbie prompted.

"I think he heard her. Wherever he was, he heard, and he came back to her. It was like-- it was like she was wishin' for it, wantin' it so hard, and it came true. He was gone, y'know? He was dead, right there on th' table. You could see it. It was horrible. I was cryin'; I was useless. Selena-- she was mad with it, like furious mad, screamin' for him--"

"Going face-to-face with God--" Robbie said softly.

"She'd'a done it, yeah. Must've worked. He came back to her."

"Wishes can come true, then."

"That time. Not always, yeah--?"

"But that one did." Robbie's voice was dreamy.

"Ah, Robbie, let it be," Laurel murmured above him.

"No, Laurelei. That such things are possible: it's good to know."

Laurel snorted; he heard her roll onto her side, toward the wall. "I'll leave yeh to it then, Socrates," she said. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," Hannah echoed quietly.

Piotr was silent; he was likely already asleep. Robbie said, gently, "Sweet dreams, Hannah."

* * *

They'd left on the one small steel lamp, hooded and private as it was. One small pool of light.

Selena lay now at its periphery, warm and comfortable under a shared blanket, a rumpled sheet. Completely, deeply relaxed. Content in all the right ways. Satisfied in all the right ways. Sore, too, here and there, but that just made all the good of it better.

Just past round two they were, a bit more polished than the shy clumsiness and breathless desperation-- always a killer combination-- of round one, and she was happy where she was, half holding Jim as he half held her. (She would use the term "ecstatic"-- a pulse-pounding, heedlessly grinning, full-on "ecstatic"-- but it seemed somehow risky, this early on. "Happy" would do for now.) They'd had practice in this part of the process back in Cumbria: the half-hold, facing one another, arms draped comfortably, possessively, across waists, knees and elbows parked where they were least likely to leave bruises. She and he were completely at ease touching one another-- in any sense, now, as it turned out-- and she was grateful for that. No bump-and-grind-and-beat-a-retreat for her Jim. For her, either.

Oddly, the only thing she was hesitant to do was to lie with her head against his chest. It wasn't that he was entirely bones, or that she doubted his sturdiness-- "You won't break me," he'd say, gently, and she'd believe him, and look in his lovely clear eyes, and move to her own pillow-- none of that: it was simply that, after what she'd done to save him, she liked to have him like this, where she could see him breathing. Where she could study his clean perfect lines, watch the dreams nudging the backs of his eyelids.

He was having a doze now: his nap before dinner couldn't erase his having had no sleep the night before, or the day he'd just had. She was nearly asleep herself. She lay absorbing the warmth of him. She lay still and heavy and content and felt her breathing modulate to match his. She thought at his sleeping beautiful face, _I love you, Jim. I love you absolutely._

She closed her eyes and slept beside him.

* * *

Two-thirty. Robbie, too lightly dozing, lay wishing that Virgil Cooper had never mentioned the _Puffin_'s smoking room. He'd assumed, coming aboard, that smoking would have to be absolutely forbidden on a rig-- ridiculous, in fact, in a steel-frame microworld where one misplaced spark could light off a fossil-fuel eternal flame. But mention the smoking room Cooper had. And then Huelsmann had pointed it out. Just through a door at the side of the mess. Boxes of safety matches on the steel tables. Ashtrays filled with fire-suppressant sand. The ghosts of smoky cravings.

"Damn it," Robbie murmured.

He rolled out of his bunk, stood, his repaired leg twinging and a little stiff. He checked around him. Two sleeping faces on the upper bunks, a third sleeping face in the second bunk below. He pulled on his boots and went quietly into the dim hall. No sounds but rig sounds, the general thrum all around, more generalized machinery roaring from away across the platform. He made his way to the mess, to the right, bore toward the door on the room's far eastern side. Just enough light to see by and move safely. No one about. Robbie pulled a battered paper packet from his trousers pocket, passing through the door to the smoking room.

He switched on a hooded lamp at one of the steel tables and reached for a box of safety matches. He shook a cigarette from the pack, put it between his lips.

Sounds from the mess. A door opening and shutting. Stumping and rustling. Clattering. Then silence.

Robbie frowned. He edged up to the door-- and a dark, huge, wild-haired figure suddenly filled it.

Robbie jumped back. "Agh--!"

"'Agh,' yerself." It was the wildman from just after dinner, the rigworker who'd warned Robbie off insulting the Wurlitzer. He was carrying a white mug full of coffee and a piece of pie on a plate; he gestured with the plate, fixed Robbie with his glittering eyes. Behind him, the sturdy short woman named Whitby and their more neatly trimmed cohort, the younger man who had been the third of their bellowing, coveralled trio, were seating themselves at a mess table with their own pie and coffee. All three of them were well smudged. "In for our break, aren't we--?"

"Right. Sorry."

"Right y'are."

"Goodnight, then."

"G'night."

Robbie retreated back into the smoking room, hearing chuckles behind him. He smoked and finished the first cigarette, lit a second.

"'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,' old son." Laurel would have none of his death sticks, and he was sensing a similar attitude from their new friends. Only one more left in the pack, anyway. The wildman and his grimy co-workers went back out onto the rig in a shuffling and a slamming of doors; as Robbie was lighting coffin nail third and last, sounds again came from the mess.

Again, suspensive silence followed. "It only works once," Robbie called at the dark room.

No reply.

"Damn it." Robbie stubbed out his cigarette, went to the door. "I said--"

"What only works once?" asked Larry Dalton. He was just inside the door of the mess, shrugging his way into a blue down jacket.

"Nothing--" Robbie looked around the mess, looked back at Dalton. "I thought you were that Yeti who's running loose."

Dalton laughed. "Must mean Donnelly. He can be a sneaky bastard, and that's a fact." He opened the door leading out. "I'll let him know he's got a new nickname. We'll call him 'MacYeti.' He'll love it. Goodnight, kid." He went out, chuckling.

"Goodnight." Robbie swallowed, muttered to himself: "Sure he'll love tearing me limb from limb, too. Clever, Robert."

* * *

_Breathe, Jim. Breathe. Please. _Breathe_, God damn it--_

"I _am_ breathin', love," Jim said softly.

Selena opened her eyes. He was lying inches away, watching her, sleepy, tender, concerned.

"Was I talking--?"

"Murmuring, yeah." He touched her face. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Really okay." She smiled, caressed the back of his hand. "You?"

"Mmm. Actually--" He looked a little sheepish. "I'm sorry--"

"What for?"

"Fallin' asleep like that."

"I fell asleep, too, didn't I?" She snuggled closer to him. "Think we had a bit of a long day."

Jim ran his fingers along her arm. "Was wonderful, though, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, it was. Bit of amazing, actually."

He smiled, shifted, realigned himself; she did the same, stretching her joints, relaxing. When she re-settled with him, they were if anything closer than they'd been before. Jim wrapped her in his arms, gently, most thoroughly, bringing himself belly to flat belly with her; Selena's breath left her in a long, slow tingle that was in no way a reaction to the chilly air in the room. She maneuvered, found his mouth, brushed fingertips across his full lips, kissed him. Jim kissed her in return. He had his eyes half closed, and his face was a perfect portrait of bliss. She had a sneaking thought that hers was, too.

Round three, then, wasn't it--?

* * *

Some forty-five minutes post-break, Kim Whitby, Richie Donnelly, and the better-groomed if equivalently grimy Jeff Nelson were back on their rounds at the _Puffin_'s cellar level, prowling the supply area and the mud room and the ballast room, checking stores and gauges and pressure levels.

At the flow monitor in the mud room, Donnelly chuckled. "That poor wee shite. Gave him a fright, you did, Kimberly."

"Wasn't lookin' at me, you big hairy werewolf."

"Right, then. Well, I gave 'im a fright. An' proud of it."

"Not nice," said Nelson, smirking.

"Did yeh see him jump? Like we're Morlocks come up outta th' muck."

Kim Whitby twisted a pressure valve, paused, scowled, twisted again. "Well, aren't we--?"

"What's a 'Morlock'?" asked Nelson.

Donnelly snorted. "Behold our Jeffrey, proudly broadcastin' his ignorance for all th' world." He gestured broadly out at the sea, the rising wind. "Someone's actin' th' part of th' lucky man t'night, anyway, no lie."

Said Nelson: "That guy Jim? No acting going on there. Girl like that? Oh, man--"

"Cinnamon-skinned Amazon, she is. Lucky wee man. Oh, for fifteen minutes wi' a lass like that. Or jus' the right ten. What's he got a fella like me hasn't--?"

Whitby considered. She left the valve, wrote numbers in ballpoint on a clip-boarded form. "Dunno. A personality--?"

"Ah, there _is_ that. But, yeh see, Kimberly--"

"My name's not Kimberly, dick."

"As mine is not 'dick.' See, personality only goes so far--"

"And then-- Wait, don't tell me: it's on to animal attraction, right--?"

"Exactly."

"Think he's got you beat there, too, Richie-- Hold on."

A good-sized splash, well below, off near the south edge of the rig. Another one after that.

"Seals--?" said Nelson.

"Not this far out: you know that, Jeff." Whitby set aside the clipboard, turning to the left. "Sounds like it came from Leg Three."

"Pirates--?" Nelson frowned through his coating of grease.

"Not unless they're throwin' each other in." Donnelly followed Whitby out of the mud room, toward the topside end of Leg Three.

She leaned out over the railing and looked down the tower to the oil-black water. "Maintenance lights are out again. Shit."

Donnelly came to stand beside her, joined her in looking down. He pointed. "What's that--? There's somethin' bobbin' there in th' water."

"Looks like a-- Crap, it's a lifepod."

"Why are we launchin' pods?" Nelson asked.

"Think we need to ask Virg that."

"Hold on, hold on. There's somethin' else." Donnelly took a flashlight from his tool belt, shone it down the tower. "Y'see-- just inside, there."

Nelson and Whitby followed the light down the flat red of the leg. Nearly halfway down, about twenty feet below the rigid mesh decking where they stood, was a squared brown bundle, like a set of sheets or a folded parachute.

"What th' hell is that--?"

"Maybe one of the science guys stuck a new weather pack in place. I'll have a look," Whitby said. "Richie, call Virg."

She climbed out onto the tower ladder, descended.

"You're a braver man than I, Kimberly," Donnelly called to her.

"Don't I know it."

"Don't look so panicked, Jeff." Donnelly slapped Nelson's coveralled shoulder. "Got a malfunction in Control is all. Gonna be hell gettin' those pods back."

He ambled over to the nearest yellow 'com box, hooked to an upright fifteen feet from Leg Three. Twenty feet below him, midway down the tower, Kim Whitby shone her helmet lamp onto the squared bundle. A small black box was attached to its far left side. A wire ran from the box upward, toward the _Puffin's_ grated decking. The box itself bore a red digital display. Numbers, 00:47:48, descending.

Counting down.

"Oh, shit--" she breathed. She looked up the tower, shouted against the wind: "Richie-- Jeff-- Shit, I think it's a--"

Twenty feet above Whitby's head, right next to the steel upright holding the 'com box, Donnelly's boot hooked itself on something.

"Th' hell--"

A wire, at ankle level.

Below, the wire detached itself from the black box. The display went blank. Whitby closed her eyes.

The explosion shattered the top twenty feet of Leg Three; it vaporized Whitby, Donnelly, and Nelson. A crane on the top deck directly above Leg Three jolted free and toppled with a wrenching and twisting and breaking of anchoring bolts directly into the _Puffin_'s core. It made a gaping hole for itself through two grated steel decks on its tumbling, cracking, roaring descent; though it missed the wellhead, which was off-center on the rig, nearer the southwest corner, it managed to hit almost everything else. It plummeted through the main machinery room and the ballast room and the mud room; in a shower of sparks it clipped the generator room and a science lab. It gashed Leg Five. And along with a snarling of girders, storage tanks, crates, lesser machinery, and a forklift, it took with it into the black water most of the rig's second shift. Lights in unshattered areas flickered and died; claxons rang out. The _Puffin_ itself staggered in the sea, slumped southward over its missing leg.

Across the rig, loudspeakers barked through static: _Emergency. All personnel to the mess. This is not a drill. Emergency. All personnel to the mess--_

Three fifty-four. Under a ceiling of charcoal clouds and sluicing cold rain, the midsummer night was already ending.

The _Puffin_ had roughly an hour to live.


	10. Chapter 9

That marvelous old chestnut about the earth moving for those in love: it was true. Was true, had been true, might be true again. Not at this exact moment, though, and two reasons accounted for that: one, the two earth-movers, Jim and Selena, were again snoozing in their loose warm tangle of selves (and this time they were well asleep, the both of them), and two--

-- the world itself at this exact moment wrenched and shifted itself on the cusp of an explosion.

"Jesus--!" Jim woke, disengaged, sat up. The light had gone out. The darkness in the room was nearly absolute. Grinding creaks and metallic groanings had replaced the _Puffin_'s low thrum of machinery. Jim heard that, heard his own breathing and Selena's.

She was already getting up. Her skin slid away from his. "Get dressed, Jim," she said.

"I hear yeh."

From the hall outside, a claxon rang, a loudspeaker barked: _All hands to the mess. Emergency. This is not a drill. All hands to the mess--_

Clothes on the lower bunk opposite theirs. Jim found his boxers and socks, his borrowed sweatshirt, trousers, boots. Selena rustled beside him.

"I don't know what this is-- I don't know what's happenin'--" he said, half-hopping into his left boot.

"It doesn't sound good." She bent, lacing. He could see her outline now, his eyes adjusting to the dark. She went to the door.

He followed her. "But wait-- Selena, wait--"

"What--"

Jim caught her as she turned, pressed up against her, against the door. He kissed her, a slow, deep, twisting kiss. "I love you. Good mornin', darlin'."

"I love you, too, Jim." Her fingertips brushed his cheek. "Let's go."

They entered the hall, which was almost as dark as the cabin, and nearly collided with Leo Chaney. He was just outside their door, carrying a flashlight. White glare glanced off his gargoyle face.

"There you are," he said. "Was just about t' knock. I'm gettin' folks up. Can you find your way to the mess?"

Emergency lighting glowed in runners along the floor. "Yeah, we can," said Jim.

"Get goin', then."

He went on down the hall, pounding at doors. Jim and Selena walked quickly for the mess.

"Should've asked him--" she said.

"I'm sure we'll know soon enough. Damn--" Jim shifted in his trousers.

"What?"

"Think I'm wearin' your pants."

"Long as you're not wearin' my knickers, we'll be fine."

Through the dark rec room, into the mess. Voices ahead. The forward doors were open. Lamps well up on the walls, either on an emergency generator or a circuit separate from the one that supplied power to the residence areas, were casting grayish light. Jim looked for Hannah, saw her sticking close to Piotr, who was talking intently with Cooper. Beyond them, in the entry hall outside the mess, people were milling about. Some were hurt, moving with the help of others. Jim saw stretchers, bodies on them.

He spotted Robbie and Laurel. "What's goin' on?

Robbie looked at them almost apologetically. He was clearly stressed. He spoke quickly: "That explosion-- that very, very big one-- which may-- or may not-- have come in addition to any personal explosions you might have been experiencing at the time-- was one of our legs shattering. We had six; now we've five. The skipper is thinking we should evacuate-- and I must say I agree with him-- only someone's gone and scuttled our lifepods."

Selena looked incredulous. "What--?"

"All but one, an' that one's damaged," Laurel said. "Look, I told Dr. Huelsmann I'd lend a hand--" She nodded around at them, her dark eyes worried and intent, and made for the entryway door, turned toward the sickbay.

Jim headed for Cooper and Piotr, Selena and Robbie behind him. Hannah smiled nervously at them in greeting; Selena smiled back, squeezed her shoulder. Impulsively, Jim reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from the girl's face. His fingers touched her skin: he felt her shaking. "Morning, yeah?" he said. Hannah nodded. "Yeah." Behind her, Larry Dalton came in through the outside doors. His hair and jacket were wet; he shuddered, shaking water to the floor.

Cooper asked him: "Larry, could you get through to the _Helvi_g?"

"Nope. Sorry, Virg. Boom fell, took out the antenna." Dalton was shivering. He looked apologetic. "If she's on her stated course, she'll be about an hour away. She'll be fighting that headwind; sea's rough as hell."

"We can use the radio on the Bell," Piotr said. "The problem is, the _Helvig_ is not presently carrying a chopper. I will have to make two trips--"

"On an hour's fuel," said Cooper.

"Rest of the stores went with the cellar. They're on the bottom by now," Chaney intoned, approaching. "Everyone's up, Virg."

"I set out on the first flight; the _Helvig_ closes the distance," Piotr said. "I drop my passengers and return."

"We can't take everyone at once--?" Hannah asked.

"Total accounted for is twenty-eight." Cooper looked at Piotr. "Bird won't take more'n fifteen at a time, right?"

"Right. And we cannot risk over-loading in such weather. Two flights."

Cooper frowned thoughtfully. "The wellhead's holding, and we're mostly offloaded. The storage tanks are pretty much empty. That's good."

"Meaning we'll just be drowned and crushed. We probably won't be burned alive, too." Dr. Huelsmann joined the group, her face tight. She focused on Selena: "You're here. Good. I can use you in sickbay." To Cooper, she said: "Let me know when you've got a plan, Virgil."

"Will do, Tammy." He continued as she and Selena went out: "Problem is-- besides the fact we're missing a leg-- with the tanks empty, we're sitting high and loose in the water--" Jim realized Cooper was looking at him, was likely speaking for his benefit; he removed his attention from the door out and his last look at Selena's retreating back and focused on the _Puffin_'s chief. "Wind's rising. Waves start beating on the other legs, and we tip."

Robbie echoed, under his breath: "We're on an oil rig that's going to tip over."

Of course, Cooper heard. "Question is, when? Best case-- Leo, what're our numbers?"

Chaney scowled. "Best case: forty-five minutes. Worst case: fifteen. There's a chunk outta Leg Five. Won't be long, once it goes."

"So let's move everyone up to the pad," Cooper said. "Pete, get ready to get us out of here." Piotr nodded; he and Hannah made for the door, zipping their jackets. Someone had lent her a blue-and-white nylon-shell parka with a puffin head stitched in silhouette on its back. Cooper turned to Jim and Robbie: "Get to sickbay. They'll need help with the injured. Larry, you're with me--"

They went up onto the chopper pad, up the steel steps on footing grown uncertain in the rain. The wind was gusting from the west. Jim panted, gripping tight a set of stretcher handles, and wondered how it could be raining sideways. Sleet mixed with the cold drops, stinging his skin. So much for summer in the Shetlands.

Piotr was waiting up top, supervising the placement of injured in the Bell. "Heads down!" he called; he entered the cockpit, started the engines. Hannah climbed in beside him. On the helipad, Cooper, windswept and sleeted upon, caught Chaney.

"You're going, Leo," he said "They'll need you. Get aboard."

Chaney scowled. "Wouldn't be right, me leavin' you."

"Explain that one to Tammy. Go on."

Jim, helping load wounded, called to Selena: "You too, darlin'. These fellas need you."

"What about you?"

"I'll catch the next one."

"Jim--"

"Go on. Keep an eye on Hannah."

Selena squeezed his hand, hard, and released him. She ducked the downwash from the rotors and climbed aboard, after Edie Irving and Dr. Huelsmann. From the door, she looked back at him, evenly, not smiling but not frowning, either. Jim broke eye contact first, just before Chaney shut the Bell's side door.

The men left on the helipad stepped back to the railing, and the Bell lifted off. Piotr angled into the wind, banked east. The clouds seemed to press the chopper to the water; those left on the chopper pad lost sight of it almost immediately.

"And the band played on," said Robbie, softly, looking off east at the invisible line where gray sky met gray water.

"You shoulda gone, Robbie," Jim said unaccusingly.

"I'm gay; I'm not a coward."

"What's that, then--?"

Robbie half-winced. "That's right; you weren't there-- You and Selena were--" He looked wryly at Jim. "Tell the world, why don't I, eh?"

Jim patted his shoulder. "Never said you were a coward."

"Then I'm exactly where I should be." Robbie smiled. "Anyway, I'm a great swimmer."

"Won't much matter when this thing goes." Cooper approached them. "Stay as close to the high edge of the platform as possible. Stay out of the water as long as possible. You go in, swim the hell clear."

Sounds: the wind, the slap of the waves, the fading dull chop of the rotors; more near at hand, the sounds of the dying rig: creaking, the groaning of metal. The water swirled below them. Jim wasn't certain if he were seeing only the motion of the sea or if the rig itself were shifting. The waves marched from the west in hissing, rolling slow motion. The men left waiting went silent. One began to pray. Cooper checked his watch. "Twenty minutes," he said.

"They'll be nearly there," said Robbie.

An horrific crunching sound rumbled up from below; a crashing followed, a tremendous splash. Leg Five had collapsed. The rig shuddered to the south, seemed to settle toward its midsection.

* * *

Selena saw it through the Bell's forward windscreen: the _Helvig_. A long, sleek gray hull, some three hundred feet in length. A slender, sharp prow cutting through the surging waves. At the midsection, crowning the ship's superstructure, a communications assembly that rose like a minaret in a Middle Eastern fairy tale. Finally, and most importantly, a round helipad at the ship's rear. Piotr headed for it. He followed the _Helvig_'s aft section on a downswing as the ship rode the tumbling sea; he set the Bell's skids down before the deck could rise again and knock against them. Crew members in life jackets and bright orange rain gear stood ready at the helipad's forward edge. As the Bell touched down, they ran forward under the rotors, bringing stretchers. 

"Go, Hannah," Piotr said. "Get out."

"No."

"We do not have time to argue."

"You're right. We don't."

Seconds later, Selena, carrying one end of a stretcher, looked back as the Bell lifted off again. Through the chopper's rain-spattered windscreen, she could see two figures, not one. "Hannah--!"

Beside her, Dr. Huelsmann breathed out: "Leo--" Chaney was still aboard the chopper, too. He waved to her, shouting something. He pulled the side door closed, and the Bell was away, heading west.

"They need someone to handle the ladder," Huelsmann said tightly. "Damn it--"

* * *

Miles away, minutes away, the collapse came. The rig caved at the middle, folding in on itself at its missing legs. The modules constituting the living quarters tipped inward; the outer supports on the helipad began to give way. As a result, the pad shook loose, tipped eastward and down. But it didn't break free. "Stay near the top!" Cooper yelled. Jim and Robbie and the others scrambled toward the pad's new upper edge, toward the railing near the stairs leading down. Their feet slipped on the wet decking. They grabbed at the railing and clung. 

_Oh, Jesus-- _Jim looked down at the buckling heart of the rig. He could see the water, smashing and black, through gaps in the decking a hundred and thirty feet below. The pad beneath his feet jolted, dropped nearly a foot. The men around him shouted with fear. His knuckles on the railing were deathly white, and he was soaked with rain.

_Please, Jesus. Please, watch over these men--_

"I can hear it--" said Robbie, beside him, shaking water from his hair and eyes.

"You hear nothin'--" snapped one of the men in reply.

_Keep Hannah safe. Keep Selena safe. Forgive me--_

"No, that's it," said Cooper, smiling toward the sound rising in the east. "He's coming back."

* * *

The Bell returned, fighting the western wind. As they came up on the rig, Chaney hooked the chopper's collapsible ladder to grommets just inside the side door. 

"Ladder out!" he shouted toward the cockpit.

He slid the door open, got a faceful of wind and icy rain. The ladder snapped down toward the furrowing sea, its far end reaching forty feet beneath the Bell's skids. Piotr angled the chopper toward the water, dragged the lower rungs briefly through the wave-tips.

"Grounding," he said to Hannah, through their headsets. "The rotors generate a static charge strong enough to knock a man unconscious."

He raised the collective, added throttle against the gusts, and the Bell rose up beside the downward slope of the helicopter pad, eased toward the men clinging to the forward railing. A rigworker reached back for the narrow ladder, caught a rung, began to climb. Two men up, three. Robbie went at the end of the next group. The Bell's engines strained, roaring against the wind.

The platform dropped suddenly-- four feet or better-- and stopped; a man nearly missed the ladder, only just caught the bottom rung, pulled himself up. Dalton went next. It was down to Jim and Cooper; Cooper nodded him on. Jim grabbed for the twisting cables, the thin metal crosspieces.

He was standing on the bottom rung when the platform gave way.

A gust of wind caught the Bell; it rocked in the air. On the ladder, Jim swung away from the platform, out under and beyond the chopper's far skid. Behind him, Cooper scrambled to stay high on the helipad even as the _Puffin_ dropped out from under him. The Bell's engines roared and groaned; Piotr pulled the helicopter steady. The ladder swung back toward Cooper-- Jim twisted around, looking back-- it'd be just short, even if the man jumped--

Jim didn't think. There wasn't time. He dropped onto the lower rung, hooked his knees, and leaned back. He let go with his hands. He swung toward Cooper upside-down, his arms out and long. He yelled, "Jump, yeh fucker--!"

Cooper jumped. His hands scrabbled at Jim's wet sleeves, locked viselike on Jim's wrists. Jim gripped him hard, gasping, pain radiating from his shoulders, shooting up his sides, through his gut.

"Climb--" he panted. "Climb--!"

Cooper pulled his way up Jim's torso, tearing at Jim's sweatshirt. His belt buckle scraped past Jim's chin. Below them, the _Puffin_ buckled and folded, making terrible noises as it died. The Bell was settling in the air, dropping-- Cooper's boot caught Jim in the thigh, hard, and then Cooper was on the ladder. He looked down at Jim, held out his hand.

"Go on--!" Jim shouted. He clawed his way up the trousers fabric on his thighs, trying to sit up. The Bell, unstable, was still dropping. Piotr angled the chopper away laterally but couldn't seem to gain altitude. The sea rose as the _Puffin_ fell--

Jim reached for the ladder, missed. He reached again, again missed. The rungs were too thin, too slick--

On their third try, Jim's fingers brushed the ladder at the second rung, caught, held. He pulled himself up sitting. He paused for a moment, hanging there in the rain and wind, feeling dizzy and exhausted.

Then he heard a hissing behind him. He turned on the ladder--

"Oh, fuck--"

A gray wall of water at least five meters high was sliding toward him. It blocked the sky. Jim's breath caught at the base of his throat; he stared at the shifting green translucence at the wave's leading edge; he stared at the water's awful solidity. He wrapped his arms tightly around the ladder, ducked his head, and closed his eyes--

--and the Bell rose, whining and roaring, rose just enough. The top of the wave washed over Jim's boots. He opened his eyes at the water's gentle tug. His heart was thumping at his chest walls.

From above him, he heard Chaney shout down: "Get yer scrawny ass up here, kid!"

Jim pulled himself standing, started to climb. It seemed as though concrete had sifted into his blood: his arms and legs were stiffening, growing heavy. The Bell's engines transmitted a deep shuddering down the ladder; Jim knew that if his muscles shuddered in countermotion, he'd lose his grip and fall. The wind slapped water into his eyes. The Bell, of fuel-driven necessity, was on course and underway. The waves surged and fell below him.

The last few rungs, and Chaney was leaning out like Quasimodo on the face of Notre Dame to catch him. The mechanic's fingers closed on Jim's wrist like steel cables, and Chaney pulled him into the chopper.

Jim collapsed; he lay, soaked and shivering, on the Bell's waffled black deck. Cooper came over, put a blanket over him. Jim tried to raise up, but he was shaking too hard. Chaney put a hand on him, gently pushed him down.

"It's okay, kid," he said. "Rest yourself."

Chaney didn't say as much, because he only could only calculate and suspect, but they had a new problem. More specifically, the Bell had a new problem. Ahead of the men soaked and shaking in the passenger compartment, a buzzer sounded in the cockpit. A red light flashed large amid the controls.

"Our fuel is giving out," Piotr said calmly.

"How long--?" Hannah asked.

"Five minutes. Ten, if we are lucky."

He drove the chopper east, ahead of the wind. The Bell tried to skitter sideways in the pounding air; he held it steady, kept its tail straight against the westward gusts. Hannah strained her eyes through the windscreen, looking for the _Helvig_. Five minutes came and went.

Suddenly the rain parted like a pebbled snapping curtain, and the Helvig was there, directly ahead, possibly a hundred feet below them.

"That's it--" said Hannah. "We're gonna make it--"

The port engine blew sharply and went silent. Another red light joined the first on the dash.

"Alright: this is it," Piotr said quietly. He spoke through his headset to the communications personnel on the _Helvig_, advised them to clear the helipad and to have an emergency team stand by. Then he pulled his microphone to the side and shouted back at the Bell's passenger compartment: "Hard landing! Hold on!"

They sailed above and beyond the trailing edge of the helipad; Piotr brought the Bell about and flew parallel with the _Helvig_, facing into the wind. The ship was riding arrhythmically in the waves; Piotr brought the Bell close only to have the ship's deck snap upward at them. He lifted clear. The starboard engine roared, sputtered.

"I must shut down the engine," he said. "If we strike that hard under power, the rotors will desynchronize and shake us apart."

Hannah gripped the armrests on her seat. "Do it, then."

The helipad rose, fell. Piotr followed it down. At the trough of the latest wave, when the Bell was roughly ten feet above the _Helvig_'s deck, he flipped the switch for the starboard engine. At the same time, he pulled up hard on the collective, raising the Bell's rotors, cushioning the chopper's drop. Nonetheless, it _was_ a drop: the Bell struck the deck hard, with a tail-back bounce. The skids thudded sparking along the surface of the helipad; the wind at last got a grip on the tail rotor, and the chopper spun sideways. The Bell's tail swung out over the surging water--

--and swung back. They came to a stop facing backward on the pad. The _Helvig_'s emergency crew ran forward from the ship's helicopter hangar as the last motion spun from the Bell's de-powered rotors.

Jim rose with the rest of the men in the chopper. All of them were shaken; they were well jostled, but none of them were obviously hurt. They exchanged looks of rattled jubilation. Chaney slid open the side door; Jim was the sixth fellow or so out. Selena was there, in the driving rain, waiting: he saw her; he tried to smile; he couldn't. He took a step toward her, and it was as if his right leg were missing below the knee. He stumbled sideways; she caught him, held him up.

"Jim--?"

Pain in his midriff, sharp and cold and solid, as though a piece of granite had embedded itself in him. He breathed around it, shallowly. He reached under his sweatshirt to touch his belly, and his fingers came away covered in blood.

He gasped at it. "_Fuck_-- Oh, Selena--" Panic drove tears into his eyes. He looked at her desperately. "I'm so sorry--"

To Jim, it wasn't so much falling as simply waiting for the rolling deck to tip far enough to catch him. He didn't quite feel his slippery deadweighted self slide from Selena's arms. He felt only the cold rain on his cheeks and eyelids; he heard her from far away, shouting for help. And that was about all.

* * *

Cooper and Chaney reached them first. 

"Here," Cooper said to Selena. He bent, gently gathered Jim in his arms, and carried him into the ship.

* * *

"Haven't done that much stitching on a rolling ship in-- hell, since ever." 

A woman's voice, deep, from somewhere outside his skull, beyond his eyelids.

Jim opened his eyes, found himself looking at a window. To his left. One small bright pane sided with light green curtains, set in a light gray bulkhead. Light poured through the clean glass. He slowly blinked at the glare. He was warm and dry and shirtless. His stomach felt a little itchy, a little tight.

"He's back," the woman's voice added.

He turned his head toward his breastbone, found himself looking up at Selena. He was lying on a bed; she was sitting beside him.

"Hey, there," she said softly.

"Hey--"

She wasn't the one who had first spoken; that would be Dr. Huelsmann, standing back from the bed beside a man in a dark blue sweater swatched with darker patches at the shoulders. He was fortyish; he had short, sandy hair, a blocky face, narrow hazel eyes. He came closer, looked down at Jim.

"I am Surgeon Lieutenant Anton Hoyser, chief medical officer of the _Helvig_." His eyes were friendly, maybe just a bit mischievous. "Your stomach is looking like the hide of a damned baseball, young man, and that is for sure. Dr. Huelsmann's are the largest stitches in the North Atlantic."

Selena brushed hair away from Jim's forehead, kissed his right temple. "Don't listen to them. You tore your scar; you were seeping, that's all. That's all. They gave you something to keep you out while they patched you up."

"You will want to rest today," Dr. Hoyser continued. "And nothing strenuous for a day or two. Move about, be active, but no heavy lifting."

"Leo's already volunteered to be your sherpa," Dr. Huelsmann added drolly. "If I were you, I'd definitely exploit the situation. Make him lift the anchor or something. He'd do it."

Jim smiled slightly. "Why'd I faint--?"

Selena pursed her lips, still caressing him. "Shock. Exhaustion."

"Standard side effects of remarkably risky behavior under extreme conditions," Huelsmann said.

Jim locked his eyes on Selena. "Who told you?"

"Who _didn't_ tell me?" To his questioning look, she said: "Yeah, I'm pretty fucking mad about it. There _are_ easier ways to get yourself killed, Jim." She paused. "But I'm even more relieved, okay?"

"Okay."

They went silent, watching one another. The moment hung there, suspended four ways.

"I think I am needed back in sickbay." Dr. Hoyser nudged Dr. Huelsmann. "I think you are, too, Doctor."

They stole out unnoticed. Jim embraced Selena; she held him close. He pressed his face to her neck, marveling: how quickly now their space became just that: theirs. Shared warmth, shared breath, the contacts, great and lesser, between their bodies. A detail as fine as her fingertips brushing the hairs at his nape.

He said to the hollow of her shoulder: "If I'd'a died-- if I'd'a died there on th' rig, this is how heaven would be. Just like this. Just exactly."

She asked quietly: "No flights of angels to sing you to your rest--?"

"How many angels would it take? All I need is th' one."

She went very still. Then he felt her breath catch. A moment later, something wet and tiny struck the skin of his shoulder, and she was shaking against him.

"Oh, darlin'--" He eased back from her; he brushed tears off her cheeks with the edges of his thumbs. "Here, don't. Shh. Don't, now."

"I'm sorry-- " She met his eyes, glanced away again. She pushed the heel of her right hand across her cheek. "Been something of a rough morning, hasn't it?"

"Yeah, it has." Jim again drew her close. He asked quietly: "How many did we lose, all told?"

"Sixteen when the explosion went off. Sixteen unaccounted for, anyway. Piotr says he saw no one in the water."

"How about those fellas hurt?"

"Mostly injuries from falling debris. No bad burns, no crushing. Dr. Huelsmann says we were very, very lucky, all things considered."

"She's right." Edie Irving spoke from the door. She looked tired but chipper. She bore a tray; she brought it in. "Juice and toast for the young man just out of anesthesia. Your stomach will thank you, trust me."

"An' I'll thank _you_." Jim released Selena, smiled gently up at the fallen _Puffin_'s cook. "Are yeh okay, Edie?"

"Yes, I am, Jim." She ruffled his hair, divvying a smile between him and Selena. "It's kind of you to ask. And-- just so you know-- the captain will be stopping by. Be warned."

She raised her eyebrows and made for the door. Jim frowned too late after her vanishing back. "What does that mean--?"

"I'm sure we'll find out." Selena found a knife on the tray, slathered butter and jam onto a warm slice of bread. "Here, Jim: eat your toast."

* * *

Five minutes later, like tax time, death, or an outtake from a black-and-white Bergman film, the _Helvig_'s captain arrived. 

He was a tall man in his dark blue uniform, aged indeterminately in his forties, nearly gaunt but strongly built. His features were elegant, slightly sinister, his cheekbones high, his lips full, his nose narrow and straight. High forehead, straight brown hair combed back. His eyes under thick black brows were large and almost as shockingly blue as Jim's. His sleeves opened onto large, capable hands, expressive long fingers. He looked like a figure from a naval ghost story, like someone you'd see through fog, silently pacing the deck of a shadowy mystery ship.

"I am Captain Andersen." A velvety tenor voice. A German accent. Jim wondered if Denmark contained any actual Danes. "Give me your names, please. Your _full_ names."

His tone implied that full names were less a requirement for Danish naval record-keeping than a reflection of an intense personal distaste for informality.

"Jim--" Andersen's eyes nicked him; Jim flinched, caught himself. "James Edward Sullivan--" He swallowed. "Sir."

Andersen frowned slightly at him, as though in the distant past a James Edward Sullivan had committed some dreadful act upon a long-lost Andersen.

"Miller," said Selena. The frown turned her way. "Selena Therese Miller."

"And you seek asylum in the Kingdom of Denmark."

Selena kept herself in scowl's way. "Yes, sir."

"I must ask you: Have you committed a crime or crimes for which you have served or were due to serve time in prison?"

Glances, exchanged. They said, a matched set of sayings: "No, sir."

Andersen pursed his lips. "Do you have any infectious diseases?" His tone suggested-- ever so mildly-- that dire consequences would visit themselves upon the one or ones infected.

"No, sir."

"Good." His eyes were like a wash of blue light. He smiled slightly; he seemed almost shy doing it. "For your information: the _Helvig_ is bound for Greenland, where we will patrol the eastern coast as far north as Ittoqqortoormiit. We will then return along our original route and rendezvous with an American investigation ship-- as yet undesignated-- at or near the site of the _Puffin Three_. The _Helvig_ will then set course for home, that being Copenhagen. As regards your status as refugees, we will continue this interview at a future time. Until then, Mr. Sullivan, Miss Miller: welcome aboard."

Jim said, formally, "Thank you, sir."

Andersen nodded crisply and left. Jim and Selena looked at one another.

"'Miller'--?" he asked.

"Someone wasn't paying attention back at Infinity."

"You're right: someone wasn't." He shook a shudder from his shoulders. "Failcum aboart, ja--?"

"I dunno: he makes me feel absolutely failcum."

Jim chuckled, looking about. "Suppose we shouldn't complain. This _is_ a nice cabin."

"This cabin is entirely your doing."

"What did I--?"

"For the hero of the _Puffin_."

He stared at her. She was smiling, but her eyes were sober. He squeezed her hand. "No-- Selena, no. I didn't do anything anyone else wouldn't'a done--" He shook his head good-naturedly. "Look, Piotr was the one flyin' th' chopper. He was the one who made the trip. Twice."

"Yeah. And that's his job, isn't it? You were the one playing like Indiana bloody Jones. So the six of us rate three cabins instead of two."

He considered. "How about you, then?"

"How's that--?"

"Are you for the hero of the _Puffin_?"

In response, she slid a hand to the back of his neck and gently drew him in. "Always."

He enjoyed the kiss; he did. Best kisser in the world, she was. He let her have her way with his mouth while he became a grand collection of tingles. But he felt a little sheepish when they broke for air. "That was a really awful line, wasn't it--?"

"Yeah." She took his face in her hands. "But it'll do."

Jim slipped his hands under her sweatshirt, along her sides, pulling her closer. Selena slid up against him, nonetheless mindful of his bandaged belly, and gently opened her mouth into his. He relaxed, lying back with her. This-- whatever this was-- this was almost like resting, wasn't it--?

"Hey--!" From the door: Hannah. She looked them over, mock-severe. "You finally got th' room, yeah? You mind usin' th' door too?"

Jim threw his pillow at her. Hannah smoothly ducked it. She swung the door on its hinges. "See, it's right here. A _door_. Closes an' everything. Wow."

"Is there anything we can do for you, Hannah?" Selena asked drily.

"Just wanted you t' know, me an' Laurel are two doors that way--" a pointing to the left "--so keep it down, yeah? Piotr an' Robbie are opposite us. Laurel told Robbie t' mind his manners. An' lunch'll be ready any minute, so you'll want t' put a shirt on, Jim."

Selena, frowning slightly, curious. "What's that about Robbie mindin' his manners?"

"Just a joke, innit? Laurel's just remindin' him, Piotr's not-- Hold on." Her eyes widened. "You don't know, do you?"

"Know what?" Jim asked.

"Robbie. He's, uh--"

"Gay. Yeah, I know."

Selena looked at him closely. "_How_ do you know that?"

"Things yeh pick up when you're about t' die on a collapsin' oil rig." He looked from one girl to the other. "Y'know: th' usual."

"You didn't _quite_ answer the question," Selena said.

Jim held his hand out to Hannah. "Pillow, please."

Hannah passed him the pillow he'd thrown. He hit Selena with it. She yelped, laughed.

Robbie appeared in the door, behind Hannah. "Is this a private orgy-slant-slaughter, or can anyone join in--?"

Selena got off of the bed. "You'd better ask him. I'm going to lunch. C'mon, Hannah."

* * *

A quiet day aboard the _Helvig_. The sea calmed; the clouds parted; the sun beamed down innocently from a pale blue sky. They reached the Faroe Islands just after five p.m. Velvety deep hills, long grass on hummocky lowlands, grass thatching on many roofs. Cliffs topped with mist, the sea slapping in white splashes at their bases. The _Helvig_ dropped anchor outside of the capital city of Torshavn, on the main island of Streymoy. The harbor master sent out launches; Dr. Huelsmann accompanied the injured from the _Puffin_ to the National Hospital. Jim went to the hospital, too, so that a doctor not on a pitching ship could check his stitches. The gang tagged along; they waited for him just outside the hospital's main doors, taking in the clear, clean island air; when Jim came out, doctor-approved, they went to dinner, "compliments," as Piotr said, "of the Kingdom of Denmark." 

They ended up at a cafe with white walls behind, a view of the harbor in front, where the six of them sat around a square table and Piotr translated the menu. Dried mutton. Waffles. Blubber in many disturbing forms. When he got to "whale," Selena held up her hands.

"I wasn't a vegetarian when I walked in," she said. "Now I'm not so sure."

"Where's the fish?" Laurel asked. "These _are_ fishin' islands, aren't they?"

"Most of it goes for export," Piotr replied. "I could ask if anyone has private stock--"

"Naw, that's okay. Here: what's this one--?"

"Puffin." He cleared his throat. "Fresh young baked... puffin."

Dry chuckles, silence. Piotr said, "The pub northward down the street serves pizza."

"You may stop at the word 'pub,'" said Robbie, rising. "Shall we, Laurel?"

She stood up. "An' you may stop at the word 'stop,' Robert. You're takin' antibiotics for your leg--"

They led the pack out the door. Piotr paused to pay the restaurant keeper for the use of the table. Hannah waited for him.

"No antibiotic so strong," announced Robbie, strolling, "that my mighty roommate cannot sling my unconscious form onto my bunk."

Selena and Jim walked along behind. She put her arm around Jim's waist; he slid his arm around her. "That goes for you, too, sweetheart," she said.

"The slingin' or the prohibition?"

"I'd gladly sling you anywhere, but I won't listen to you moaning through a hangover."

"Implyin' that a fella of Irish descent can't hold his liquor: that's a dangerous line, darlin'."

"Points, two: that old demon anesthesia, one; and, two, the fact you're still too thin. You're absolutely fat-free."

"Complainin', are yeh--?"

"Not exactly. Doesn't stop you being sexy as hell."

"But I should mind my imbibin', you're sayin'."

"Just saying you might consider saving your moaning for more worthwhile activities."

Jim smiled. He cupped her bum surreptitiously, stole a squeeze. She slapped his hand playfully, glancing at him over her shoulder. Her eyes were bright and frank. Piotr, having caught up, stopped the group outside the clean windows of an establishment two blocks down the street and pushed open a green-framed door. Jim followed Selena inside.

Visitors from England. Oh, and Scotland, too. The keeper of the Long Pause Cafe was a hearty dark-haired woman with devilish deep-blue eyes. She greeted Piotr with a white-toothed smile and a kiss on each cheek. "Nansk!" he said, smiling back. He left the reciprocal cheek-kisses out; Hannah very nearly managed not to glare. Nansk settled them at a heavy wooden table in comfortable semi-darkness beneath an antiqued brass chandelier and handed around menus and left them alone.

What sounded like a folk song was lilting from somewhere near the bar. Another jukebox, though not nearly as beautifully surreal as the Wurlitzer aboard the _Puffin_, stood against the north wall. A man with a crystalline tenor voice was singing about voyages and time travel.

"That's not--" Selena frowned, listening. "That's not Queen, is it--?"

"Sure is," said Jim casually, checking the beer list. He spoke maybe a second too quickly: "''39.' _Night at the Opera_."

"Is it a rule that music must become more bizarre the closer one comes to the Arctic Circle?" Robbie asked.

"Yes," said Piotr, looking at the menu. Not that the pizza toppings were many. And the cheese was sheep's-milk cheese. He called over to Nansk, asked for a beer. She brought him his brew, took drink requests from the others.

"You're trying not to sing along," Selena said to Jim. "Admit it."

"That obvious, is it?"

"Mm hm."

"I'd have t' kill yeh," said Laurel, mildly. "No offense. Just sayin'."

"I'd like a beer, too," Hannah announced.

Disapproval from Selena; echoed disapproval from Jim. Piotr smiled, his eyes thoughtful, and ordered her a beer. He sipped his; Hannah sipped hers, grimaced slightly at the bitterness. When her one sip had become four or six or so, Piotr announced he was switching to cola.

"A pilot should keep a clear head," he said. He looked to Hannah. "Don't you agree?"

She nodded soberly. "I'd better switch to cola, too, then."

"Good idea," said Piotr.

Selena smiled quietly over her iced tea.

Jim gestured toward Hannah's glass. "Give us th' rest o' that, then." She pushed it his way, across the wooden tabletop. "Thanks, Hannah." He took a sip, turned to Selena. "How about you, darlin'?"

"I'm fine. This is good." She looked at him, at his inquisitive clear eyes. "I don't drink."

"Christ, Laurel," said Robbie, "we're becoming a minority."

"You'll be becomin' unconscious soon enough, yeh twit."

Robbie wrinkled his nose at her. Minutes later, the food came. A minute later than that, Jim pushed aside his adopted beer.

"It'll do a number on me gut; you're right. I can feel it."

"So he can be taught," Selena murmured. She reached for a slice of pizza, gave him a sidewise smile.

"Some day when I'm not comin' off meds, mebbe. Soda'll do for t'night." It didn't hurt that her free hand had settled on his right thigh just north of his knee, under the table. Minding its manners, sure: but there it was. Slender long fingers light as butterflies perching on his trousers. And they _were_ his trousers now, not hers. The morning's mixup fixed: they'd taken a moment to unswap before coming out that night. Jim cleared his throat. "What d'yeh say, Robbie--?"

Robbie looked about defiantly. He raised his glass of beer. "To that, James, I say--"

Nothing. He said nothing. Laurel deftly plucked the glass from his hand as he slid off his chair. A moment later he was snoring up at them from the clean floor.

"What, Robbie? The fuckin' sun also rises?" She took a good mouthful of his beer, nodded at the pizza and breadsticks and the coleslaw standing in for green salad. "Well, what are we waitin' on? Let's eat."

* * *

Hours later, after the sun had set, after a launch ride on black sparkling water back to the _Helvig_, as Jim pulled off his sweatshirt and brushed his teeth, Selena stood with her forehead tipped to a door two down and across the hall from theirs. She knocked quietly. 

Piotr opened the door a moment later. He was wearing his trousers and a white t-shirt. In short sleeves, it was more than obvious: he had more muscles than any man had a right to. For the slightest second, Selena found herself staring.

"Yes, Selena?" he said politely.

"I-- About today-- Piotr--"

"Yes--?"

"I just have to say this." She bit her upper lip. "You know, I should be furious with you for taking Hannah back to the rig. I'm not, okay?"

"Okay."

"But if you ever-- if you _ever_ hurt her, I will fucking kill you. Understand?"

"Yes, I understand." He smiled. "You love her very much, you and Jim."

"Yeah, we do." She shifted on her feet, suddenly a bit awkward before his even gaze, the broad white expanse of his chest. "Goodnight, then."

"Goodnight, Selena. Pleasant dreams."

* * *

A quiet night. Robbie had had the good sense-- courtesy of his antibiotics-- to fall asleep before a hangover could sink in and sprout. Jim had found in the pocket of his returned trousers a strip of foil packets he'd thought had gone with the _Puffin_ to the dark bottom of the sea; he and Selena celebrated the find accordingly-- though gently, a bit carefully, keeping in mind his new stitches. Hannah slept the deep sleep of a girl who'd had for one day just enough adventure and little enough beer. Laurel, listening to the distant rumble of the ship's engines, was glad enough to be bunking with someone who didn't snore. _Unlike Piotr, poor man_, she thought with a smile.Their great Danish bath-boat had nothing on the sounds Robbie could broadcast from dreamland after he'd had a nip.

* * *

Morning. A languid sea, a clear sky. Selena woke just before six and, having no greater priorities, lay quietly watching Jim sleep next to her. He came to just past the top of the hour; he stretched like a long ginger tabby under the covers before he opened his eyes. 

"Mmm--" He blinked sleepily, smiled a rumpled smile at her. "Mornin'."

"Morning." She kissed him. "Proper-morning this time."

"Don't jinx it, love." He pulled her close-- then he paused, frowned, rubbed his stubbly jaw. "Jesus, careful: I'll rub yeh raw."

"Like you haven't already."

"Right-- Sorry, yeah?"

"Think I'll live." She smiled, sat forward, looked back at him. "Shower--?"

"You'd better--" He paused, swallowed; a bit of color came to his cheeks. Suddenly she could feel him looking at her, looking at the daylight on her skin. If he touched her now, they'd never make it out of bed. "You take th' shower," he said, finally. "I'll deal wit' these bristles."

* * *

The _Helvig_'s mess was smaller than the _Puffin_'s, stainless steel and bright white enamel comprising what color scheme there was. When Jim and Selena came in, clean, debristled, and clothed (according to the silk-screened lettering on their latest sweatshirts, they were, at a guess, both now property of the Danish Navy), Leo Chaney, Dr. Huelsmann, Laurel, and Robbie were eating at a table that could seat four more. 

"Morning," Chaney called. A Danish sailor stared from the next table over as the _Puffin_'s homeliest mechanic poured syrup over a deep bowl of oatmeal. Chaney pitched him a gorgon's glare. "What--?" The sailor raised his eyebrows, looked discreetly away.

Jim and Selena went through the chow line-- the aforementioned oatmeal, toast, sausages, something flaky, lumpy, and yellow that passed for scrambled eggs, orange juice, and coffee black enough to bend light-- and joined their fellow refugees.

"Where're Hannah an' Piotr--?" Jim parked his tray, looked around the room.

"Oh, they've come an' gone ages ago," Laurel replied. "Dream-boy's gonna show her how t' take that helicopter all th' way apart an' put it back t'gether again. Walkin' on air, she is."

"How about you, Robbie?" Selena asked. "How're you feeling?"

Robbie stirred sugar into a cup of coffee. "Simply relieved to _be _feeling." He lifted the spoon clear, looked at it with mild surprise. "It didn't melt. Incredible." A sip; a wince. "Given the fact that I felt nothing at all last night after-- after--"

"Nine-thirty," said Laurel. "An' us stuck carryin' yeh back to th' launch, yeh foul lump. We shoulda left yeh."

"Speaking of which--" Jim looked over at Chaney and Huelsmann. He took a swallow of coffee-- "Oh, _fuck_--!" The cough half-imploded in his throat; Leo and Tamara waited until he could speak again. "Weren't yeh-- Shouldn't yeh have stayed back at th' hospital, with th' injured fellas?"

Huelsmann shook her head. "Company says I stick with the remainder of the core staff. So I stick. I'd just be underfoot back there anyway. They've got good doctors at that facility. Not to mention, company owes me about a hundred and fifty years of vacation. Couple days' lazy time: I'm good with that."

"We wanted t' see the sights, too," Chaney added. He took a deep swallow from his mug. "One thing these Danes know, it's coffee. Good stuff."

"But-- umm--" Robbie paused. "We _are_ heading for Greenland, right?"

"They got sights in Greenland, don't they?" Chaney got up, looked over at Huelsmann. "More coffee, Tammy?"

"Hit me, Leo." She held out her mug. Chaney took it, smiled at her, ambled off to the liquids station.

"Can I-- I have to ask." Selena gestured after Chaney with her fork, but she was looking across at Huelsmann. "What is that--?"

"What's-- Me and Leo?"

"Yeah."

"It's a story--"

"It'll take us half th' day t' swallow this coffee," Jim said.

"Okay." Huelsmann settled back in her chair. "Whole thing-- background. Me: I'm what you might call an army brat in reverse. Mom is Chinese-American; she was in the United States Air Force, stationed in Germany, where she met my father. They got married and moved back to the States. I was born in Chicago. Medical school, all that stuff, but me, I don't want to work in a clinic, don't want to work in a hospital. Mom's pushing me toward the service, 'cause I'm like her: I've got the travel bug. But I've also got this thing about doing medicine for organizations that-- well, that train people to kill. Something not quite logical there, the way I see it. Still: turns out I've got almost no other scruples whatsoever, so I see nothing wrong with working in the oil industry."

"Givin' 'em the ethics speech, Tammy?" Chaney, returning, set her mug in front of her on the table, re-seated himself.

"Yep. Thanks, Leo." She reached for her coffee. "So I end up being a shack doctor on this rig down in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana. And one night, a couple of guys on day-leave, they get in a dustup in a bar on shore--" She glanced at Leo, who kept his eyes on his coffee, a smile hiding in the creases of his face. "Cops break it up. But one of the guys, he gets himself shot. So this other guy, the guy he's with, gets him out of there. They make a break for it, jump a launch, and head-- these idiots head back to the rig."

"Didn't know where else t' go, see," Chaney said, looking around the table. "So we get back--"

"And Mr. Chaney here brings me his wounded friend--"

"Wait," Selena said. She looked at Chaney. "I don't understand-- if the police were there, why didn't they take your friend to the hospital?"

"'Cause the police were the ones who shot him." Chaney looked at her wryly. "Things get confusin' like that in the Gulf."

"So-- to make a long story even longer--" Huelsmann took a good drink of coffee. "I get the slug out, and I sew him up, and the Louisiana authorities nail me for not reporting a bullet wound."

Chaney snorted. "Like they didn't already know about it."

"Medical board could've had my license." She shrugged. "Probably should have. But someone somewhere pulls a few strings, and it boils down to a choice: either I get fired or I take a transfer to the frozen north. So here I am. Here _we_ are." She nodded toward Leo.

"Felt like hell, gettin' her in trouble," Chaney said. "So I put in for a transfer of my own. Jason did, too."

"Jason was that close to going to jail," Huelsmann countered, flatly.

"Pardon-- who's Jason?" Jim asked.

"Jason McCrae." Chaney looked around the table. "You might've met him on the rig--"

"I did," Selena said quietly. Jim frowned at her tone.

"He's one of the guys missing," Chaney said.

Huelsmann looked tightly at the table. "You know, God might not think kindly of me for this, but I can't say I'm entirely sorry."

Jim saw Selena purse her lips; he touched her hand. She glanced his way, a look that said, _Ask me later, okay?_ He nodded slightly; he asked Leo: "So what's on for today, Mr. Chaney?"

"You guys are with me." He looked from Jim to Robbie. "Always plenty t' do on a ship. Paintin', cleanin', whatnot. We'll ask around, make ourselves useful."

"Me, I'm for th' laundry," Laurel said. "I'm an innkeeper, aren't I? Get too far from th' wash, I go through withdrawal."

"I think Dr. Hoyser could use a hand in the dispensary, if you're up for it." Huelsmann looked across at Selena.

"Sounds good."

"Let's get goin' then, people." Chaney got up. "Let's show Captain Andersen we're guests worth havin'."

* * *

A day of painting, cleaning, and whatnot. A good, ordinary day, honestly. The Danish sailors were friendly enough, all told, and most of them spoke English better than most of the people who'd been Selena's customers at the chemist's back home. Not a tremendous lot was happening in the _Helvig_'s medical area, now that the _Puffin_'s injured had gone, so she asked Dr. Hoyser about life in Denmark in general and about life in Denmark since the United Kingdom plague in particular. When he'd had enough of telling her, he led her to his office, parked her in front of the computer on his desk, and wrote a list of web addresses on a slip of paper. "Here," he said amiably, and left her to it. She was reading off the screen when Jim passed by the office just before dinner, heading toward the exam area. He was moving well; he didn't seem to be in pain. She waited for him to exit. 

He did, five minutes later. She didn't have to catch him; he stopped at the office door and leaned in. "Hey, darlin'. What are yeh lookin at--?"

Selena stretched, pushed back from the screen. "The International Compact on Relief in the United Kingdom. More specifically, Denmark's emergency immigration policy with regard to British refugees." She glanced back at him wryly. "That's us, you know."

Jim stepped in, came closer. "Sounds fascinatin'."

"We'll need to know it, won't we--?"

He smiled soberly. "Yeah, we will."

She smiled back at him, returned her attention to the web page. "What brings you to sickbay?"

He fingered his sweatshirt over the bandaging on his midriff. "Gettin' this checked."

"And--?"

"Dr. Huelsmann says it looks pretty much fatal."

A delay as his spoken words sunk through the pixel-words on the screen into her head. Then Selena stared at him. "What--!"

"Yeah." Jim pursed his lips. "Says I won't live more'n twenty-six thousand days or so."

She shook her head. "You bastard."

Jim grinned. He leaned in, read over her shoulder.

"I've been thinking--" Selena said, quietly, after a moment. "What's to become of Hannah?"

Jim tipped his head to hers. "I was wonderin' that, too-- and I thought we might-- I thought we might become her guardians. If it's allowed."

"Don't see why it shouldn't be."

"Probably be easier if we were married."

"Yeah."

"I asked Andersen."

Selena blinked. "Jim, you didn't--!"

"Yeah, I did." He smiled at her. "Just t' ask. Make his mind easier about our sharin' a cabin, if nothin' else. Want t' know what he said--?"

He looked so guileless that she smiled back. "What did he say?"

"Well, t' set the scene-- I go up to 'im after lunch--"

"I'd wondered where you'd gone off to."

"Some sort o' top-secret mission, wasn't it? So I go up to 'im-- him all content after his food, I'm thinkin', and I lead off wit', 'Excuse me, Captain, sir, but fellas such as you-- you sea captains-- you can perform marriage ceremonies, yeah--?' An' he says, 'What of it?' And he stares at me wit' those eyes-- y'know what I'm sayin'-- they're like th' bottom of an iceberg, they're that cold. And, bang: I'm losin' my nerve. 'Could you marry me an' Selena?' I ask. I just sorta blurt it at 'im. An' he says, 'No.' 'Why not?' I say-- I'm completely losin' it by now, y' understand. An' he says, all straight-faced: 'I am married already. My wife and I have a house outside Copenhagen.' An' he just goes. He walks away. And I know-- I just know-- he's laughin' at me."

Selena said nothing, kept her face very still. She turned back to the monitor. A moment later, she snickered.

Jim shrugged, his arms going out. "Okay, I give up--"

"Oh, Jim--" Her snickering blossomed into full-on laughter. She shook with it. A moment's hysteria, maybe-- _He's as much as asking me to marry him_-- but that never hurt.

Jim dropped to a squat beside her, his face working. "Wonder if they all say that...?"

"''Ve haf a house outside Copenhagen'--?" Selena asked innocently. Outwardly she was calm. Inside she was quivering.

Obviously, Jim was, too. He snorted, burst out laughing. "Don't, now--"

"Pardon me--" At the door of Dr. Hoyser's office, the _Helvig_'s first mate, Skjol. A very short man, squarely built. Neat beard, dark eyes under dark brows. "Miss Miller, the captain would like to see you on the bridge."

"Sure." Selena cleared her throat, stood up, just a bit caught out.

"This way, please." If Skjol had heard them laughing, he was polite enough not to embarrass them now with an accusing look. He gestured toward the hall.

"Mind if I tag along--?" Jim asked.

"Certainly. Quickly, though, if you please."

* * *

The bridge of the modified Thetis-class frigate _Helvig_. Instruments banked before a row of square windows facing out over the ship's forward structure. White leather chairs, a glistening wooden ceiling above. The efficient bustle of men and women in blue uniforms, radio chatter. Captain Andersen was at one of the communications stations, leaning in beside the operator, when they entered. 

"Captain," said Skjol, "Miss Miller is here."

"Good." Andersen frowned when he said it; he steepled his expressive fingers and came over. Looking up at him, Selena suddenly realized he was nearly as tall as Piotr. "Ten minutes ago," he said, "we received a distress call from the storage platform _North Sta_r, ninety kilometers north of our present position. We have changed course to respond."

"And that affects Selena how--?" Jim asked.

Andersen scowled. "Did I ask for him, Mr. Skjol?"

"They seem to move as a unit, sir."

"Very good, Mr. Skjol." Andersen fixed Selena with his laser-blue eyes. "The man who sent the message from the _North Star-- _and, unfortunately, he has stopped transmitting-- he asked for you, Miss Miller. He asked for you by name."


	11. Chapter 10

On the _Helvig_'s bridge, three listeners, one message:

_Selena, if you can hear this: stay away. Repeat: stay away. I've escaped our friends from Preneen, but the U.K. authorities will be here soon. They'll take me prisoner; they'll take you, too. Please, darling, stay away--_

A jarring burst of static, then nothing.

"And there it ends," Andersen said quietly. "If you could identify the speaker, Miss Miller, I would be most grateful."

"I can't identify him--"

Andersen's brows lowered. "'Can't'--? Or 'won't'?"

Selena glared at him. "I've never heard that voice before."

"He called yeh 'darlin','" Jim said.

She turned on him. "What are you implying, Jim--?"

"Why would he call you that?"

"I have no idea--" She stared at Jim as he looked away. "Don't you dare-- Damn it, Jim, don't you _dare_ look like that--"

"Miss Miller," Andersen said, calmly, "you swear you have never before heard that voice?"

"I swear." She glanced at Jim. He wouldn't meet her eyes.

"A mystery. We will solve it when we reach the _North Star_."

"We're still goin' there--?" Jim asked, incredulous.

"A distress call is a distress call. We must respond."

"Sure. I understand." Jim nodded, cleared his throat. "Will you-- Excuse me, Captain--"

He walked off the bridge, out into the white corridor. Selena came after him.

"Jim--" She caught up, reached, grasped his hand. "Jim, please--"

He stopped, looked down at his boots.

"This is a first," she said softly.

"What d'you mean?"

"You're jealous of someone I've never met."

"I'm not jealous--" He paused, breathed out. "I'm worried for you--"

"Are you sure?" Tenderness in her eyes, sure, but a frank edge, too. She traced his cheek with her fingertips. "If you want to fight, we can."

"I don't want t' fight. I want t' stand with you on this." He touched her cheek in return. "Forgive me, yeah?"

She hesitated, looking at him. Then she smiled. "Done."

* * *

Two hours later, just past nineteen hundred hours, the Danish frigate _Helvig_ came up on the floating storage platform _North Sta_r. 

"It's a ship," said Jim, looking up at the behemoth through the windows of the bridge. Selena was with him. Cooper and Chaney and Dalton were there, too.

"It _was_ a ship," Andersen countered. "A single-hulled oil tanker. Originally of U.S. registry. Tethered to the ocean floor and converted to storage platform use in 1996 by Western Star."

"Western Star Oil and Gas?" Selena asked.

"Yeah." Cooper spoke. "Western Star owns most of the production and storage facilities in this sector."

Selena caught Jim's eye. "Infinity," she said, very quietly. "Infinity Base--"

Perspective was difficult at sea, sizes and distances hard to gauge. As the _Helvig_ approached the _North Star_, Jim had a sense of shrinking, of being slowly and heavily pressed down. In its stillness and size, the former tanker seemed an island, something set intentionally to separate the sea from the sky. She was roughly four times the size of the _Helvig_, the _Helvig_ herself being just under four hundred feet in length. The platform's deck, above the rust-red primered hull, was nearly a hundred feet above the water.

"How do we get aboard?" Jim asked.

"Normally, we would chopper aboard. There is a helipad just there, aft of the superstructure." Andersen pointed. Above them, on the deck at the near end of the ship, was the blockish white structure that once had been the wheelroom, the crew quarters, the galley, engineering, small storage; attached at its back edge was a round platform, suspended over the water. "But, as our borrowed Bell is not yet recovered from its rough landing, we will have to find alternate means--"

"Sir--" --as the _Helvig_ passed the _North Star_'s stern, a sailor called back from the observation window opposite-- "-- their landing tower is in place."

"Such as that," Andersen murmured. "Very good. Thank you, Mr. Jaegersen."

Bolted to the _North Star_'s side within squared steel caging, reaching from the platform's deck to the ocean, was a zig-zagging run of steel stairs, painted yellow, ten steps to a set. The blue-gray sea washed over a gridded platform at the structure's base.

"We will send a Zodiac," said Andersen. "Mr. Skjol, pick your landing party."

* * *

The _Helvig_ held off from the _North Star_ at a distance of roughly nine hundred feet, the ship standing dwarfed at the edge of a massive parallelogram of shadow the lowering sun cast across the water from the storage platform. The landing party gathered near the helipad at the ship's stern. A steep and rigid run of steel steps terminating in a small square platform ran to a gray-and-black inflatable Zodiac bobbing at the _Helvig_'s side. Skjol had picked two sailors from the _Helvig_'s security complement; he asked Cooper, Dalton, and Chaney if they would come, bringing with them their understanding of petrochemical structures and operations. And Selena would go, Skjol noting wryly but with serious dark eyes that she, of all of them, had the nearest thing to an invitation. He noted also that arms seemed appropriate; however, the _North Sta_r being essentially a giant floating gas can, firearms were unadvisable. Skjol requested a brace of three-foot pry-bars from the _Helvig_'s cargo area. He handed them out to the landing party with a straight-faced instruction: "Use these at your discretion." He also handed around Motorola radio handsets. "And please: stay in touch. These are on a public channel," he added, wryly. "So mind your language, gentlemen-- and Miss Miller." 

Jim stood with Selena while sailors finished prepping the Zodiac; he said, "You don't have t' go, Miss Miller."

"I'll be fine."

"It's a bloody trap. That much is obvious, isn't it--?"

"Jim--"

He looked out and up at the _North Star_'s dark bulk. Darker still it was for the clear sky and the sunlight casting out over its top. "I'm asking you, let these fellas do their job. Stay here. Please."

"Maybe I'm tired of that."

"Of what, then?"

"Sitting by while others take the risks."

She said "others"; he heard "you." He saw it then in the set of her jaw: she was still stinging about his run on the beach at Preneen. Quite likely about his stunt above the falling _Puffin_, too.

"Fine." His jaw muscles worked. "I'm comin' with you."

"I think Dr. Hoyser would qualify this as 'heavy lifting.'"

"Care t' argue it--?"

"I will if I have to, yeah."

"Then just be careful. Be bloody careful." He saw Larry Dalton looking their way. Something in the man's face bothered him-- he couldn't say what. He caught Selena's eye, nodded toward Leo Chaney, who was standing with Virgil Cooper near the deck railing, pointing up at a row of round tanks along the _North Star_'s edge. They looked over as Skjol called the landing party to the Zodiac. "Stick close t' Leo, will yeh? Will you do that for me?"

"Sure, Jim." She met his eyes; she smiled, squeezed his hand, and went off to the steel stairs running down to the landing boat, her pry bar gripped tight.

* * *

She wouldn't have admitted it to him, but the grip was partly out of fear. When she and the men were in the Zodiac, when they'd cast off from the _Helvig_ and were on their rumbling, gurgling outboard way, waves slapping at the boat's rubber bow, she remembered exactly how much she hated riding so close to water. She wasn't exactly exerting a death-grip on her seat's edge, but she'd zipped herself without shame into a lifevest. As they came up on the landing platform alongside the _North Star_, she looked at the water washing over the horizontal heavy grid and shuddered. A dream she'd once had came back to her: she'd been driving across a bridge crossing a wide and wooded river, and the deck-- it was concrete-- was submerged in the clear water, first by inches, then by more-- 

She asked Leo as the _Helvig_'s sailors tied off the landing boat: "What's the depth here?"

"'Bout eight hundred feet." He smiled a homely smile at her. "But it's pretty much redundant after the first ten."

"Thanks." She smiled a thin smile back at him and stood, cautiously.

"Don't worry, kid: I'm right behind ya."

He held her arm as Selena stepped onto the platform. She didn't mind in the least.

Up the landing tower. It creaked against the _North Star_'s rough red hull; Dalton, puffing, said, "Y'know, I heard-- one time, one of these things let go while a group of guys were climbing it. Trapped like crappies in a livebasket. Went right to the bottom, cage and all. Thousand feet, straight down."

"Thanks for sharing, Larry," said Chaney, behind Selena. "Just like the damn _Titanic_, huh--?"

Selena focused on the stairs beneath her feet. She said to Chaney, tightly: "You start in with that Celine Dion song, and I'll do you a mischief."

"Hell, we'd take _A Night to Remember_ over that Cameron crap any day. Right, Virg?"

Above them, Cooper called back: "Sure thing, Leo."

"If you please, gentlemen--" Skjol was first to the top. He stepped onto the _North Star_'s deck, looked cautiously around, made room for the others.

It was a rectangular city of massive white tanks, gargantuan runs of piping in yellow, white, and blue. The landing party headed aft along the edge of the deck, along a three-cable railing, toward the multi-storied structure that had been the _North Star_'s wheelhouse and bridge.

"They'd've converted it to the control room," said Cooper, walking. "Below it should be the crew quarters, the mess, the common areas. Behind and below those should be the tunnels back to engineering. That's you, Leo."

"Yep," said Chaney. "Creepin' around tunnels, that's me."

At the wheelhouse, stairs ran to the bridge. Cooper nodded toward doors straight ahead. "Should find the dorms and the mess through there, Mr. Skjol."

"Thank you, Mr. Cooper. You men--" -- to the sailors from the _Helvig_-- "-- check the crew quarters. Mr. Cooper, Mr. Dalton, and I will start in the bridge and work down to you. Mr. Chaney, Miss Miller--"

"We get the caves, right? Right." Chaney smiled at Selena. "You like spelunking, kid?"

"I prefer it to boating, yeah."

"Stay in touch, all of you," said Skjol. "Let's go."

* * *

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY 

"Authorized enough," Chaney said. A steel door painted white: he pulled up on its heavy straight handle, opened it, looked through.

"Still got power," he said. "That's good." Selena looked past him, saw naked bulbs burning in metal cages along a low ceiling. A narrow hall, steel, painted light brown. She stepped in after Chaney, followed him.

They went along for some distance, passing doors marked with numbers. "Storage," said Chaney. Selena had an increasing sense of being underground, of the walls around them being very thick indeed. She wasn't claustrophobic, but she was hearing things: long, low creakings, deep metallic groans. She asked Chaney's back: "Is it supposed to sound like this?"

He answered amiably: "Yep. These big boats, they're always grumbling. Back in the day, these woulda been the storm tunnels. Most stable part of the ship."

A thrumming ahead. Another thirty feet, and Chaney turned to the right. Selena followed him through an open triple-wide door into a room full of large machinery, monitors, wall gauges. But for the oil and black grease that seemed to coat everything, it might have been well lit.

"This'd be the place." Chaney went toward what looked like a control panel on the wall to the left of the door. As he did, his handset and Selena's buzzed in unison.

_Mr. Skjol?_ Andersen's voice, thin over the tiny speaker.

_Yes, sir?_

_We have picked up a radar contact southeast of here, heading quickly in this direction._

_Not a tanker, sir--?_

_We think not. As of yet, they have not returned our hails. How near are you to completing your sweep?_

_Nearly done, sir._

_Anything to report, Mr. Skjol?_

_Signs of a struggle, sir, but minimal damage to the facility itself. The platform still has power. No bodies. No survivors-- yet. Mr. Chaney, have you anything to report--?_

Chaney raised his handset to his mouth. "Nothing yet, Mr. Skjol. We just reached engineering. Off the top, I'd say things look okay on this end."

_Thank you, Mr. Chaney. _Skjol's voice, speakered._ The mystery continues, Captain. How near is that contact?_

_Forty minutes out, at present speed._

_We will complete our sweep and return then, sir._

_Thank you, Mr. Skjol. Andersen out._

Chaney re-pocketed his handset and continued over to the control panel. He scanned gauges, moved along the wall. He stepped around a good-sized chunk of machinery, rumbling and dirty gray and taller than he was. Selena scanned the room, looked into the dark corners--

Then, from the hall, she heard something that wasn't grumbling metal. Actually, she heard a man's voice, calling low-- "Selena--?" The sound shuddered along her spine; she tensed. She looked back toward Chaney, but he'd moved out of sight. She gripped her pry bar more tightly, edged back into the access tunnel, looked right, looked--

A figure was walking toward her from the left, the way she and Leo had come. It must have been behind one of the numbered doors they'd passed. It seemed to step between the pools of light cast by the caged bulbs; the shadows passed it along, indistinct. Selena raised her pry bar to chest height--

The figure said again: "Selena--?"

"Leo--!" she called over her shoulder. She returned her attention to the thing approaching her. "Stay back, or I'll knock your bloody head in--"

"Selena, it's me--"

He stepped into a patch of light ten feet away. He was twentyish and dirty, dark-haired, shabbily dressed. He held out his hand--

Behind Selena, Chaney growled: "Who the hell are you?"

He paused; he lowered his hand. He smiled at them. "Tell him, sweetheart," he said to Selena.

* * *

With the _Helvig_'s unknown contact but fifteen minutes away, the landing party returned. The mystery of the _North Star_ had, if anything, compounded itself. Blood in the dorms and the mess, on the bridge, congealed in puddles sticky and brown. But no bodies. One man, alive. And Selena, projecting a quietly dangerous blend of confusion and anger. 

"Who are you?" Andersen asked coldly. He had summoned them to the bridge, Skjol and his team and their find. Jim had tagged along; Selena was keeping close to him.

The _North Star_'s one resident-- or one survivor-- was about Jim's age and height, handsome in a sharp-featured way, ill-shaven. Curly dark hair gone shaggy. Eyes either bog-green or bog-brown. He'd submitted to a patdown search of his shabby self. No weapons.

"Chaplin. Brian Chaplin." His accent was uncertain, his voice soft and flat. "I escaped from Infinity Base, West Yorkshire, in the company of--" -- and he nodded toward them, toward Jim and Selena-- "-- Selena, Jim, Hannah, and Mr. Kalinovich."

"Liar--!" Selena said tightly.

"You'd say that now, wouldn't you, sweetheart--? Now that things have gone ass-backward?"

Andersen looked between them neutrally. "Explain, please, Mr. Chaplin."

"He's lying--" Selena snapped. "Captain, you can't--"

"You will be civil or leave the bridge, Miss Miller." Andersen looked calmly at Chaplin. "Your explanation, please, Mr. Chaplin."

Chaplin fixed his mossy eyes on Selena. "He doesn't know, does he? Guess the gig is up now, isn't it, darling--?"

_He's goading her, the bastard, _Jim thought. Bad enough the "darling." He got himself between Selena and Chaplin and said, dangerously, to the peat-eyed stranger, "You're speakin' t' the captain, not t' her."

"I'm certainly not speaking to you, Jim." Chaplin smiled thinly at him and turned to Andersen. "To be brief, Captain: We escaped from Infinity Base three-- nearly four-- days ago. The five of us. Jim and Selena, they-- I'm sorry to say, Captain, we left behind casualties. We killed at least six people at the base; we-- they killed at least half a dozen soldiers before then, in Manchester. But I helped them at Infinity--" -- a nod toward Selena and Jim, glowering and incredulous-- "Miss Miller led me to believe that I-- well, that I was _special_ to her. I'm not proud of what I did."

"It's nothin' compared t' what's comin' t' yeh--" Jim muttered. "You lyin', filthy--"

"Mr. Sullivan." Captain Andersen, softly. Quietly, still: "Continue, Mr. Chaplin."

"Mr. Kalinovich helped us escape. It seems he developed an unhealthy attachment to the girl-- to Hannah. His co-pilot wouldn't countenance it, so Kalinovich killed him. They-- we had trouble with the helicopter we'd stolen, and they abandoned me outside the village of Preneen, on the east coast of Scotland. It appears Mr. Sullivan had more sway over Miss Miller's affections--"

"I'm gonna have sway over yer fuckin' neck in a minute--" Jim said.

"Silence, Mr. Sullivan," Andersen said. "Mr. Chaplin--?"

Chaplin turned from Jim's icy stare. "They abandoned me in Preneen. The town was under attack-- pirates running infected up and down the coast. They caught me; the stock boat continued south. They had a second ship, lighter and faster than the stock boat. They put me on that one, and we headed north to attack and plunder rigs--"

"You've covered some distance in those few days, Mr. Chaplin," Andersen said drily.

"Why didn't they kill you?" Selena asked.

"I offered to join up."

Jim snorted. "And they-- they just let you--?"

"No, no, no--" Selena touched Jim's shoulder. She kept her eyes like stone on Chaplin. "Makes all the sense in the world, actually. Opening on a pirate ship for a lying coward? Why not--?"

"We're both going down, darling," Chaplin countered gently. "You know that. As soon as the U.K. authorities find us--"

"How did you come to be on the _North Star_?" Andersen asked.

"They were foolish enough to have their landing tower in place. So the guys on the pirate boat hailed them-- this was a day ago, when that blow was coming up-- and said we were having engine trouble and pump trouble and were taking on water and could we please come aboard. They let us--"

"And--?"

"And-- what they do, Captain, is this: they send one or two men up first, armed secretly and carrying-- carrying--"

"What, Mr. Chaplin--?"

"The rage virus. On a knife blade, a razor-- They infect the crew and get clear. When the crew has pretty much wiped itself out, they wade in and clean up. That's what they did on the _North Star_."

"But you escaped," Selena said coldly. "How?"

"Irish patrol vessel appears out of nowhere. Someone in the _North Star_'s crew gets out a distress call-- a quarantine call, actually, and this Irish patrol vessel, she's bearing down on the platform and our boat. So the boys get in the boat and go-- only, just before we leave the platform, I run back on board--" He looked at Selena and Jim desperately. "The thing of it is, the Irish know who we are. Us. Me, you, Piotr, Hannah. They're coming for us--"

"This is bullshit." Selena shook her head. "The _Irish_ are after us--?"

"U.K. authority in the North Atlantic. Infinity must've alerted them. Or Leeds. They're coming for us--" He looked genuinely fearful. "That's why I hid when I saw the _Helvig_ approaching. I thought it was them. They'll have us under martial law, Selena; that's why I told you not to come--"

"So it's back t' bein' hanged, then," Jim said sarcastically.

"Captain Andersen--" The seaman at the communications station pulled aside his headphones, looked over. "That contact south of us, heading our way: she's a midsize frigate, Irish registry--"

"Christ, they're here," Chaplin said.

"She is approaching at an inordinate rate of speed, sir," added Skjol, from the control station. "Twenty-two knots."

"As if they intend to ram us--" Andersen muttered.

"Or race with us, sir," Skjol countered drily.

"I detest racing, Mr. Skjol." Andersen pulled himself straight and barked out: "Sound general quarters. Communicate our identity--"

Jim started as a klaxon whooped out, paused, whooped out again. He and Selena shrank closer to the wall of the bridge. Cooper and Chaney and Dalton did so as well. Brian Chaplin took a step forward, his eyes locked forward and through the front windows on the approaching ship. In the distance, on the left, it looked like a smaller version of the _Helvig_. Jim could see the dark water breaking white against the ship's gray sharp prow.

The communications officer spoke: "They have identified us already, sir."

"Who are they?"

"Irish naval vessel _Tamsyn_, sir. Armed frigate."

Skjol spoke: "Some forty meters shorter than the _Helvig_, but quicker--"

"The _Tamsyn_ informs the _Helvig_, sir," said the communications officer, "that the _Helvig_ has on board five fugitives from Coalition justice. She wishes them transferred aboard."

"Oh, no--" Chaplin said. "I told you-- Selena, I told you--"

"Shut up, Mr. Chaplin," said Andersen.

"They're slowing, sir. Twenty-one hundred meters, still approaching." The communications office paused, spoke more sharply: "They are arming their deck guns, sir--"

"Should we arm ours, Captain?" Skjol asked.

"No, Mr. Skjol." Andersen frowned. "Firing control--"

A young woman, from the right: "Yes, sir."

"Plot a solution with the torpedoes."

"Yes, sir."

Jim heard Chaplin, under his breath: "_Torpedoes_--?" The stranger's dark eyes were fixed, now, on Andersen. Jim could read the tension in his back and shoulders; Jim himself tensed, waiting for Chaplin to move. But the man remained still. Poised, coiled-- but still.

"Sir--" --the communications officer-- "-- the _Tamsyn_ awaits our response. Will we make the transfer or not?"

Andersen called over to the woman at firing control: "Miss Bergstrom--?"

"Firing solution plotted, sir."

"Thank you, Miss Bergstrom." Andersen went to the communications station. "Mr. Olssen, ask the Tamsyn for the prisoner transfer code."

"They're firing, sir--" said Skjol.

At a distance, a muffled thudding. Then, through the steel of the _Helvig_'s superstructure, Jim heard, overhead, a thin, harsh whining. It faded, died away. No impact followed.

"Can they sink us?" Selena asked, very quietly.

Chaney edged closer. "Probably couldn't nail us below the waterline-- this thing's double-hulled-- but they get hits on engineering or control, they can cripple us--"

Andersen glanced overhead. "Warning shots," he said softly. "Mr. Olssen, has the _Tamsyn_ provided the prisoner transfer code?"

"Sir, she has not."

Skjol asked Andersen, discreetly: "'Prisoner transfer code,' sir--?"

Jim thought he saw the barest trace of a thin smile on Andersen's lips. The captain's eyes, though, were icewater clear and cold. "Mr. Olssen, inform the _Tamsyn_ that we consider them to be a commandeered ship sailing, furthermore, under quarantine. Should they attack, we will not take prisoners."

Olssen spoke, paused, listened. He looked worried but calm when he spoke again: "Sir, the _Tamsyn_ replies that they have no intention of taking _us_ prisoner."

"Captain," said Skjol, from firing control, "they are re-targeting their deck guns."

Andersen asked: "Miss Bergstrom, what is our firing status?"

"Solution plotted, weapons one and two primed, sir."

Andersen spoke as calmly as a man commenting on a sports score or the weather: "Weapons one and two: fire."

"Firing weapons one and two, sir."

Jim felt rather than heard it: two heavy concussive thumps from near the _Helvig_'s bow. A curving launch, unseen; unheard splashes. "Torpedoes on target and arming, sir," said Bergstrom.

"They're firing again, sir," Skjol announced.

Again the harsh whistling overhead. This time closer. Jim pulled Selena back, nearer the wall. Chaney kept them from leaning against it. "Stand clear. You'll get knocked down if we're hit," he said quietly.

But they weren't hit. The _Helvig_ went untouched. Splashes-- these they heard-- explosions beyond the hull, amidship. No hits.

"They cannot shoot worth a damn," Andersen said. "Status on the torpedoes, Miss Bergstrom--?"

"Ten seconds, sir."

Jim overcounted. Nerves. He'd reached a count of eighteen when the _Helvig_'s weapons hit the Irish ship. The first torpedo struck the _Tamsyn_ just behind her anchor chain; the second struck amidship. Nothing-- then her hull burst outward at the strike points. A cataclysmic explosion followed-- "Her engines going, sir," said Skjol-- and she effectively split in two. Fire whipped up from the rifts in the ship's hull; black smoke coiled upward. Jim stared-- they all did, all the civilians-- out through the _Helvig_'s bridge windows. Along the _Tamsyn_'s deck, he could see tiny figures running, leaping into the water. But there was no evidence of uniforms, announced Skjol, from behind a pair of binoculars. A lifeboat fouled in its davits and capsized when it hit the water. The water into which it tipped was itself on fire.

"Change course to approach, sir?" Skjol asked.

"No, Mr. Skjol." Andersen's face was grim. "No quarter. We do not pick up survivors."

"Why the fuck not--?" Jim demanded.

Andersen swung on him; before he could speak, Selena said, "Because those assholes are running with infected, and in all that bloody panic we can't tell who's infected and who's not." She looked at Andersen as coldly as he was looking at Jim. "Right, Captain?"

"Correct, Miss Miller."

"What was the code, sir?" Skjol asked quietly.

Andersen looked to his first officer. "There was no code," he said. "Captain O'Neill would have known that. Helm--"

A redheaded young man, pale but steady in his blue uniform: "Sir."

"Current course?"

"Course set for Greenland, sir. Present speed: twenty knots."

"Very good, Mr. Stover."

Jim found himself shaking. Those men struggling in the water, the burning ship. An Irish ship. He said: "They were well out of their territory, weren't they?"

Andersen turned to him. He looked at Jim, and his expression was not as harsh as it might have been. "Ireland, like Britain, had ships at sea when the infection hit. Captains decided individually whether or not to put in. Those who chose to remain at sea-- in effect, those who survived-- have coordinated their patrol efforts with ours. Under the International Relief Compact, we offer them harborage and supplies."

"So th' virus-- it reached Ireland."

"Yes, Mr. Sullivan. A ferry from Liverpool made the crossing to Dublin carrying infected."

"How far did it get? D' you know--? Could they stop it?"

"The Scandinavian/EU alliance received final messages from Ireland three weeks ago. Scattered transmissions from as far north as Belfast, as far south as Cork City. Then nothing. The Americans are surveilling the country now, sweeping for survivors. But that is not our immediate concern." Andersen swung on Chaplin: "The _Tamsyn_, Mr. Chaplin. The _North Star_. What happened to their crews?"

Brian Chaplin said, flatly, "An infected human being resists feeding. It's not impossible, though--"

"What are you saying--?"

"You asked me what happened to the crews, Captain. I just told you."

Andersen scowled, his pale eyes awful. "Explain."

"They keep-- the pirates keep so many infected as-- as weapons, I guess you'd say. Those who can run and fight. The dead are food."

"Jesus--" Selena whispered.

Brian Chaplin looked from her to the others. Andersen, Skjol. Chaney, Dalton, Cooper. He looked at Jim. Jim looked back. He could see sweat on Chaplin's forehead.

"Guess it's Plan B, then," Chaplin said softly.

He reached behind his right ear, as though he were going for a scratch; he ran his fingers through his curly dark hair, and when his hand came away there was something in it. Something slender and shining. He held it between his fingers and swung it at Jim--

"No--!" Cooper. He shoved Jim aside, and the shining something whisked past his left shoulder. Cooper's shoulder, not Jim's--

A second later, Chaney, moving like a cobra: Chaplin's wrist was broken; he was staggering from a shot to the jaw. The shining something clattered end over end on the deck.

It was a razor.

By now, guns were coming out of holsters. Andersen's. Skjol's. Two sailors, stepping forward. Chaplin, stunned and hurt, wasn't looking at the guns or the men holding them. In Chaney's steel grip, he was shrinking back, pulling away.

From Cooper.

The fabric of Virgil Cooper's shirt was slit to a length of six inches where the razor had hit. A straight line of red had drawn itself across the skin of the shoulder beneath. He was turning his head, trying to see the cut. Dalton reached for him--

--and Cooper doubled over, shouting in pain. He staggered, convulsing. Dalton stepped back. Cooper raised his head and looked at him with blood-red eyes--

"Shoot him--!" Selena shouted.

Another shout, from Chaney: "No--!"

Cooper turned on him and Chaplin, and Andersen barked: "Mr. Cooper--!"

He heard. Something in him heard. Beyond the burning pain and the red of his eyes, Cooper knew his name. He swung toward Andersen, snarling--

The bullet caught him in the right temple. A piece of his skull broke free, blood sprayed. The younger of the two sailors standing near him looked away too late: blood splashed the boy's cheek, his chin--

Cooper twisted, went over. They all jumped back from his falling. He landed on his back, thrashed once, and was still.

Andersen wasn't looking at him. He was looking at the boy, his blood-splattered face.

"Mr. Gregersen--!" he said sharply.

"Sir--" The young sailor looked at Andersen with terrified blue eyes.

"Did you swallow any of that? _Did you_--?"

"Sir, I don't know--"

Andersen leveled the pistol at the boy's forehead. "Look at me, Mr. Gregersen. _Look at me--!_"

"Yes, sir--" Gregersen pulled himself up, forced himself to look past the gun barrel at Andersen's face.

"Ten seconds," Skjol said quietly. The second of the sailors, an older man with a dangerous, wiry build, added his grip to the death-hold Chaney had on Chaplin.

Heartbeats. "Fifteen," said Skjol.

Andersen's pistol hand was steady.

"Twenty, sir."

When the count in Jim's head had reached thirty, Andersen said, "Very good, Mr. Skjol." He lowered the pistol. "Mr. Gregersen."

"Yes, sir." There were tears in his eyes, but those eyes were still blue, and Gregersen was holding himself steady.

Andersen smiled gently. "You pass."

"Thank you, sir."

"Mr. Skjol: security to the bridge. Biohazard team, medical. Armed protocols. Inform Dr. Hoyser that we have a man in need of decontamination."

"Yes, sir."

The bridge around them was very still. Jim had his hands on Selena's arms; he'd pulled her back just before the shooting, had put himself between her and Cooper's blood. He was staring now at the man, the sunken _Puffin_'s toolpusher, dead there on the polished deck.

Chaplin was looking, too. He raised his eyes from the corpse, looked across at Jim. He smiled thinly. "Well, you win some--"

"Yeh bastard." Jim released Selena, his eyes meeting Chaplin's. "Yeh fuckin' _bastard_--"

He bowled into Chaplin. Andersen grabbed him, tried to pull him back. Four security officers, just arriving, partitioned their efforts between Jim and Chaplin. Chaplin shouted in pain when one of the men managed to wrench his broken wrist.

"Mr. Sullivan!" Andersen snapped. "STOP."

Jim froze. He looked at the faces of the security men; they were that close to securing _him_. He lowered his hands, stepped back. He was shaking.

"Captain Andersen," said Brian Chaplin, clearly, "I demand to be taken to the American embassy in Reykjavik."

"You _what_--?" Jim asked, incredulous.

"This is a ship of the Royal Danish Navy, Mr. Chaplin," Andersen said evenly. "And I am her captain. At the end of our patrol, I will see you are taken to the American embassy in Copenhagen."

"I am an American citizen, Captain Andersen, and I demand--"

Andersen's fist shot out, bony and huge, and caught Chaplin square in the jaw. The man's head snapped back; he went limp in the hands of the men holding him.

The _Helvig'_s captain looked at him with distaste. "Search him," he said to the security men. "Thoroughly. Have him sedated first. Be careful: he may have sharp objects concealed on his person, and those objects may be contaminated with the rage virus. Then have him placed in irons and locked in the brig. Go." He watched as Chaplin was hauled out, and then he said to Skjol, quietly: "I struck a prisoner, Mr. Skjol. You may put that in your report."

Skjol's face was neutral. Unreadable. "Put _what_ in my report, sir--?"

Andersen breathed out, his eyes troubled and sad. "Nothing, Mr. Skjol."

"Very good, sir."

"You really gonna take him to the American embassy, Captain?" Chaney asked.

"Do you think he'll live that long, Mr. Chaney?" Andersen countered.

"Couldn't say, Captain." Chaney looked numb. He opened his mouth to speak; he hesitated. "Speaking for myself, I--I wouldn't-- Virgil wouldn't want that. But I don't know how the rest of the guys'll take it, sir. The guys from the _Puffin_. Couldn't say."

"Noted, Mr. Chaney."

The medical team was arriving. Dr. Hoyser was there, he and an emergency tech in hazmat suits. The tech tended to the splattered Mr. Gregersen, cleaning the boy's face with something that smelled several steps stronger than bleach while the older of the security men, Gregersen's original counterpart, looked on. The older man held a pistol in his hand while the tech worked; he kept his eyes on Gregersen's.

A body bag for Cooper. A gurney. Dalton left the bridge, but Chaney stayed and watched. Jim watched him. He watched the man's eyes fill with tears. Dr. Huelsmann arrived; her face as she took in the scene was a terrible mixture of professional detachment, personal deep shock. She caught one of Chaney's hands, gripped it hard in both of hers.

"Captain Andersen--" she said. She had her eyes on Chaney.

"Yes, Doctor."

"What are your navy's protocols with regard to infected dead?"

"Immediate burial at sea, Doctor."

Chaney flinched. He made as though to speak, couldn't. Dr. Huelsmann said: "The _Helvig_ has mortuary facilities, Captain."

"She does, Doctor."

"I would like to make a request, sir--" She paused, her face working. A tear broke onto her right cheek. "We're-- we're roughly two days along the Greenland coast, three days back to the site of the _Puffin_, correct--? Might we keep Mr. Cooper with us until the _Helvig_ returns to the rig?"

"He'd like that, sir," Chaney said hollowly. He looked at Andersen. "He'd like t' be with the guys. Water's deep there."

Andersen said to Huelsmann: "You would take responsibility for his body, Doctor?"

"I would, sir."

"You would be performing any necessary preparations under armed guard. Full biohazard protocols. Do you agree to that?"

"I do, sir."

"Very well." Andersen went to them, placed one hand on Chaney's shoulder, one hand on Huelsmann's. "I am sorry for your loss."

"Here are my thoughts," Skjol said quietly. He was standing near Jim and Selena, nearer than Jim had realized. He wasn't looking at them. "The pirates. Mr. Chaplin. They took the _North Star_-- but they couldn't just send their own boat away. The _Tamsyn_ might spot it. We might spot it. So they scuttled it, settled in on the rig, and sent their distress call to Captain O'Neill. They commandeered the _Tamsyn_ when she arrived and murdered her crew. Then they left Mr. Chaplin to wait for us." He shook himself, frowning; he glanced at them almost apologetically. "But these are only my thoughts. Pardon me, Mr. Sullivan, Miss Miller--"

He touched his cap and went to join Andersen. Jim touched Selena's arm, nodded toward the door. She followed him out.

In the west, the sun had disappeared. Across the water, the light was going, too.

* * *

The _Helvig_ lost a night, or so it seemed. The crew-- all of them, actually, crew and not-- were for the remainder of the day quiet and numb and efficient. Evening came with calm seas, a pale darkening flat-blue sky. Selena and Jim and Hannah and Piotr met Laurel and Robbie for dinner, and even Robbie was quiet at table. He related, though, where he and Laurel had been during the general quarters-- "Just there: in our quarters. Her quarters, actually. Big fellow told us to stay put, and we stayed." 

"We heard th' shootin'," Laurel said quietly. She didn't say they'd heard the cries from the men on the _Tamsyn_ as they burned or drowned. She sat stirring without eating a bowl of creamed tomato soup.

Selena excused herself and left the mess, bound for sickbay. Jim would have followed; he couldn't. Cooper was there, and Dr. Huelsmann would be tending to his dead body, and Selena was going to offer what help she could. Jim couldn't go there, couldn't bring himself to go. It shamed him. He left the dinner table ahead of the others; he went to the ship's library and looked at the web pages he'd read over Selena's shoulder the day before. But his eyes were nonporous, and the words simply drifted across them without sinking through to his brain. He didn't realize he was crying until a tear splashed onto the desktop just in front of the keyboard. He left the library and returned to their cabin. Selena wasn't back. He hesitated; he hovered; he and the world were detached from one another. He fell asleep on the bed fully clothed.

He woke, briefly, some time later. Selena, also dressed, was curled around him, stroking his hair.

* * *

The _Helvig_ reached the eastern coast of Greenland just after oh eight hundred the next day. Green there was, but no trees: summer grasses, lichen, and flowers in distant splashes of purple and yellow and pink. A coastline of pebbled beaches, stony hills, and boulders. In the western distance rose mountains and massive white tables of glacial ice. The _Helvig_ passed hunters paddling sealskin kayaks; it passed wet-suited tourists in fiberglass kayaks painted red and yellow. The kayakers waved at the ship, passing as it was at a safely wake-free distance. Chaney, overseeing his press gang as they touched up the iceproof paint near the hangar, soberly waved back. 

Robbie paused with his gray-coated brush, glancing over his shoulder at the tiny figures in their pointed boats. "You think that water's as cold as it looks?"

"I think it's about ten times colder'n it looks," Jim replied. "Am I right, Leo?"

"Close enough. Water's about forty degrees, give or take." Chaney pointed at the stony coast, to an inlet opening onto the sea, to white slabs drifting there in the blue-black water. "Still have pack ice, even in July. Thing is, they say about Greenland, the water's so cold, you go in, you never come up. No gases. Nothin' decomposes."

"Ultima Thule," Robbie said softly. "We've reached the end of the world, James."

* * *

A quiet day, a sky clear but melancholy and muted in its blue. Jim missed Selena at lunch. He sat with Hannah while Robbie went off to separate Laurel from her laundry for the space of a sandwich. 

"Where's Piotr?" Jim asked.

Hannah peppered a plate of goulash. "Talkin' wit' th' captain. Think he's still mad about th' chopper. Th' one we should have, not th' Bell."

"The-- It's a Lynx, yeah? Worth more'n a Bell, is it?" Jim shoveled a forkful of sauced noodles into his mouth, found it to his liking.

Hannah looked at him as though he were a minor grade of moron. "Well, yeah." She smiled a little, stirring her food. "Piotr said Andersen said it was just like tradin' th' cow for a handful o' beans."

"An' they'll be pluckin' beans from Piotr's pocket t' make up th' difference--?"

"Yeah. Don't bother 'im, though. He can handle it."

"How's th' Bell, then?" Jim reached across, gently touched a smudge on Hannah's left cheek. "Supposed t' leave some of th' oil _in_ it, aren't yeh--?"

"Look who's talkin'." Hannah lightly tapped his forehead, traced what had to be a good-sized blot of paint. "You have t' wait for that first coat t' dry before applyin' th' second--?"

About then, Robbie arrived with his rescuee from the scullery. He and Laurel trayed up and sat down. Laurel looked at Jim in his spots of gray and said, "Christ, you look like the Tin Woodsman."

"Right, right, I'm off then." He smiled, got up.

"Aw, Jim, I didn't mean--"

"No, no. Stuff's probably well toxic. I'll get cleaned up."

* * *

He wanted Selena to be in the cabin. She wasn't. He got the paint off his hands and face, again feeling slightly disconnected, feeling slightly more alone. He wanted to talk to her; he knew he'd go absolutely silent if she were there. He thought of going to the dispensary to find her. He thought it would seem weak of him. He changed his shirt and went to get another assignment from Leo.

* * *

They met at dinner. Piotr had survived his chat with Andersen; Hannah had re-attached herself to him. She sat beside him in smudgy contentment while he and she shared a table with Robbie and Laurel. Selena found a table off to the side for herself and Jim. They both ignored their food. He could feel her trying to catch his eyes. She put her hand on the table between them, and he put his hand over it. He squeezed her slender fingers. 

"Umm--" He cleared his throat. "D' you think we could--"

"Yeah." She stood up, her hand still in his. "Let's get out of here."

Not the leading back of-- had it really been only three nights ago? No tangling kisses, no clumsy, shy pulling away of clothing, no wonderful, desperate holdings. She sat beside him quietly and patiently on their bed and waited for him to speak.

"Cooper," Jim said, finally, softly. "He's dead because of me."

"He was _alive_ because of you."

"It should've been me there on th' bridge--"

"No--!" Selena spoke so sharply that he went still to his very core. Her face worked; she struggled with the words. "I'm not-- Christ, I'm so ashamed-- Jim, I'm not strong enough for that. Mr. Cooper is dead, and I'm sorry. I'm very, very sorry. But you're alive, and that means more to me. It means everything to me. You have no idea how much I love you."

"About as much as I love you, I reckon."

She laid her head on his shoulder. Not a full embrace, but contact enough. Jim tipped his head to hers.

"Think Andersen'll really take 'im to th' embassy?" he asked, after a time.

"I think Andersen spoke honestly. Mr. Chaplin's chances of survival are not good. And I'm not sorry to hear that."

Jim swallowed. She still had about her a hard something of cynicism-- he was loath to call it "bloodthirstiness"-- and it frightened him. The primacy of survival seemed to come so easily for her. His concept of staying alive, by comparison, had diluted itself with the concepts of protection and compassion. Indiscriminately, sometimes. He could think of Chaplin in the brig, drugged and strip-searched, in restraints, and feel something like pity. He was afraid to tell her that. That in itself was troubling: he was off his head mad for her, he adored her, he in no way doubted her devotion to him, and yet he could hesitate, could keep something back. He wondered if there were anything she feared to tell him.

He reached around, gently rubbed her upper arm. "Think I'm in need of a walk. Clear me head."

"Want me to come with you?"

"No-- thanks, darlin': no." He touched his forehead to hers. "I need t' think. Don't imagine I'd be th' best company."

"I understand." She leaned away, looked at him affectionately. "Think I'll hit the gym. I need to do something rough and brutal. A few hundred crunches, something like that. Not--" -- and she passed him a tousling caress, rising-- "-- rough and tender. I'll see you later, yeah?"

"Yeah." He caught her hand, pulled her in, shared a kiss with her. "Love you."

"Love you, too, Jim."

* * *

Jim prowled the ship, invisible. The last of the sunset had gone; the passageways were on night-illumination. Muted, careful lighting, pools of shadow. He passed sickbay; he glanced in and saw Chaney quietly embracing Huelsmann outside Dr. Hoyser's office. She had her head on his shoulder. They didn't see or hear him; he moved on. The sailors he passed didn't acknowledge him; nor did they ignore him, exactly. Two armed sentries stood at the stairway leading down to the brig. There would be more sentries below. Jim went upward instead, up the stairs to the _Helvig_'s living areas. He passed the lounge: no thunk and clatter from the billiards table. Two sailors sat playing chess across a round table, under a metal wall lamp. 

Jim moved along. He was thinking of finding a jacket and heading aft to haunt Hannah and Piotr and the injured Bell in the chopper hangar when he saw light stealing out from under the door to Captain Andersen's office.

He eased up to the door, paused. It was open the slightest bit: hence the triangle of light in the dim hall. He rapped on the polished wood.

"Come in."

Jim entered. Andersen was seated at a heavy wooden desk across the way. Golden oak by the look of it. It matched the room's paneling. There was royal blue carpeting underfoot, a short royal-blue sofa against the wall on the right. Andersen was dividing his attention between a notebook open on the blotter on his desk and a black laptop to the blotter's right. A white bitten apple glowed upside-down on the laptop's open lid. The fixture above Jim's head was dark; the room's light came from a corner lamp next to the sofa and from a lamp on Andersen's desk. Deco glass, long slender panes in amber and white.

Andersen tapped with his long fingers at the keyboard of his laptop while Jim stood quietly and waited; two minutes or so passed, and then Andersen closed the black appled lid and the notebook, too, and folded his hands on the blotter and looked across at Jim with his terrible electric eyes under black brows and said politely: "What can I do for you, Mr. Sullivan?"

"I-- umm, I'm not-- I'm not sure, sir."

A thin smile. "Are you here to propose again, Mr. Sullivan?"

"No-- no, sir."

"That is a relief. Though I admire your intentions." Andersen's smile became slightly less skeletal. His eyes, though, remained sober. He gestured at the sofa, at a cushioned chair before and to the left of his desk. "Please, Mr. Sullivan: sit."

"Thank you, sir." Jim seated himself on the edge of the sofa. "If I'm bothering you, though--"

"Not at all." Andersen picked up the handset of the phone on his desk, tapped a button, waited. "Steward? Coffee and biscuits in my office, if you please. Two cups. Thank you."

He set down the phone; he looked over and chuckled at the expression on Jim's face. "Don't worry, Mr. Sullivan: it will not be the crude oil they serve in the mess."

"That's a relief, no lie." Jim smiled a bit, sheepishly.

"What brings you here, then?"

Jim tapped his fingertips together, looked at his knees. Then he looked at Andersen evenly. "I feel responsible for what happened yesterday, sir."

"Whatever for, Mr. Sullivan? We sank a vessel full of criminals and infected. I cannot and will not tolerate guilt for that. Or were you referring to Mr. Cooper?"

"I was, sir."

"You would prefer to have died in his place," Andersen said softly.

"I--" Hearing it spoken: it chilled him. He looked away. "I think-- I don't know--"

"You would prefer that Miss Miller not have her future husband. That your young companion not have a guardian. That Mr. Kalinovich not have a friend he considers to be of exemplary character and bravery." Andersen leaned back in his chair. "If anyone is to blame, Mr. Sullivan, I am. I should have had that scoundrel placed in irons the moment he began to speak. As for Mr. Cooper--" and he waited for Jim to look back at him-- "we should remember kindly those who have died, seek just retribution against those who did them harm, and live our own lives lawfully and well. Can you agree with that?"

Jim mulled; he said, "I can."

"Good." Andersen smiled, formally but kindly. Then his eyes went toward the door, and he looked genuinely pleased. "Ah: coffee."

A steward in a white jacket: a black tray and mugs, a black plate of biscuits, a silver coffee service. The man politely set down his burden, received his captain's thanks, and left. Jim watched Andersen pour.

"One thing, though--"

"What is that, Mr. Sullivan?" Andersen handed him a mug.

Jim reached for the cream, smiling wryly. "'Exemplary character.' Dunno if I agree with that."

"A sound assessment, I'm sure." Andersen sipped from his mug. "My nephew is a sensible judge."

"Your nephew--?"

"Piotr, of course. He wouldn't have told you. You and your friends are under the protection of the Danish government. By extension now, also, you are guests of my family."

* * *

Jim returned to their cabin, his and Selena's, feeling better about things-- better, actually, than he'd felt in weeks. Good coffee, good ordinary conversation. His head was full of new facts, ideas that extended past the perpetual present, a present that until very recently had seemed to offer little other than day-to-day survival. Piotr Kalinovich, Andersen's sister's boy, had come to live with Andersen and his wife Emily when the sister and her husband died in a car wreck in Russia. Emily was English; she may-- or may not, Andersen had noted, drolly-- the importance of state discretion and all that-- have once worked for the British secret service. She would like them, he'd said, Jim and Selena and Hannah; they would like her. Which led, somewhat, to the future-- 

Andersen's house, his and his wife's, the one outside Copenhagen, was in fact "property." A piece of land, the house proper, outbuildings. And a carriage house. It was, frankly, something of a wreck, the latter structure; they'd debated for years whether to have it renovated or pulled down. Perhaps Jim and his friends could help them decide.

A pointed, friendly look from Andersen's lightning-blue eyes. Jim had stared back, realizing--

"You'd let us live there--? Why?"

"Why not?"

"You don't even know us--"

"You hardly seem vandals, Mr. Sullivan. You are Piotr's friends. And you are in need." A smile, thin but sincere. "And don't think I am exaggerating the condition of the place. I believe it is what one would call-- very euphemistically-- a 'nice fixer-upper.' Will you consider it?"

"I will. _We_ will. Thank you, sir. Thank you."

On a glow, then, and optimistic, back to the cabin this time later. It was past twenty-three hundred hours when he closed the door quietly behind him. The lighting was low; Selena was asleep, curled on her side beneath the blanket and sheet. He stood for a moment and listened to her easy breathing; he went to the cabin's bathroom, then, and cleaned himself up a bit. He stripped to his boxers and hung up his trousers and sweatshirt and crept into bed behind her.

Beneath the sheet, Selena was wearing a t-shirt, blue; he had no doubt that somewhere on it one could find the Danish Navy's stenciled claim of ownership. He traced the lithe line of her back with his eyes. At her waist, he paused; he smiled. White waistband, clean baggy white cotton below--

Familiar. He switched off the light; in the dark, he eased in behind her, slipped his arm across her slender middle, and let his voice rumble very softly in her ear: "You can wear my knickers, but I can't wear yours--?"

She sighed contentedly and micro-stretched, molding herself back against him. "Mmm hmm."

"That's a double standard, that is."

"You could always take them back," she murmured.

She was speaking from a ways off. In the morning, if anything, it'd come off as a dream, what they were saying now. And there'd be more-- _We've a place, darlin', if we want it_. He smiled and snuggled up closer and spoke against her shoulder. "Mebbe later."

His hand had ended up against her belly, and she pressed her own hand over it. She'd had her crunches, by the feel of things, no lie. A million or so, at least.

"Mmm," she said.

* * *

Robbie and Laurel, one last, late stroll on deck. The night was clear and cool, the stars shining in swarms of brilliance. The Greenland coast was a low black mass passing by on the _Helvig_'s port side. They'd come to pause near the railing by the helipad, at the edge of the light cast back from the hangar's open door. Within the structure, Piotr and Hannah were sitting on a bench, side by side. She was holding a greasy bit of machinery as carefully as any other girl might hold a rose from a sweetie, and he was indicating something to her about it, talking. The Bell sat open and neatly vivisected behind them. 

"So-- are you going to make a play for him?" Robbie asked quietly, looking at the pair in the hangar.

"Are you?" Laurel softly countered.

"No."

"An' that'd be a 'no' here." She shrugged. "I know when I'm outclassed."

Robbie smiled at her. "Hannah? She's a kid."

"No, Robert, she's a kid with a crush. An' she needs that more'n I need a bit o' fun with him." Laurel turned from the hangar, looked out over the black shining water. "We're bound for a land of vikings an' Norse gods, anyway, aren't we? I'll catch th' next one."

"If I don't catch him first." He bumped shoulders with her, gently, his expression wry and affectionate. "Let's go in. It's getting cold."

* * *

Three thirty. Just before the end of a calm night. On the _Helvig_'s dimly lit bridge, the blue-sweatered sailor at the communications post pulled away his headset and called to the officer of the watch: "Mr. Hecker, sir--" 

Replied Second Officer Hecker, leaving the ship's sonar station and a display of the sea floor along the Greenland coast: "What is it Mr. Madsen?"

"Contact, sir. Helicopter approaching from the southeast. Claims to be our Super Lynx. Call sign KMD WSR 90B 'Valeria,' Pilot requests permission to land."

"That sounds like our Lynx. On the speaker, please, Mr. Madsen."

In the quiet of the bridge, an American voice, cheerful and brash, caught mid-transmission: _Hey,_ Helvig, _you there? Do you want this thing or not? We've been tryin' to catch ya for two days now. You still have that Bell your pilot borrowed?_

"This is the _Helvig,_" Hecker said. "Who are you?"

_Name's Johnson. Isaac Johnson. Up from Infinity Base, West Yorkshire. Your pilot left this Lynx with us a few days back. Busted down. Finally got the parts, fixed her up. She's flyin' like a charm. You want her back?_

"Should I notify the captain?" Madsen asked, very quietly.

Hecker shook his head _no_. "Yes, we would, Mr. Johnson."

_Great. Umm, hey: about that Bell-- It's a Western Star 212--_

"Here but disabled, sorry to say. Pilot made a hard landing under poor conditions a day ago."

_Aww, that's too bad. Don't sweat it-- What's your name, buddy?_

"Second Officer Hecker."

_Hecker. Don't you worry, Hecker. We'll get that little bird patched right up, get her out of your hair. Okay?_

"Very good, Mr. Johnson. Thank you. You have permission to land."

_Thanks a million, Hecker. Johnson out._

The speaker went quiet. "One good thing to happen on this patrol, at any rate," Hecker said. "The captain will be pleased to see that Lynx, even with an American like Mr. Johnson flying it in. Notify the hangar crew, Mr. Madsen."

"Yes, sir."

Perhaps it was a trick of the too-clear Greenlandic air. Over the steady thrumming thump of the _Helvig_'s engines, Second Officer Hecker and his radioman heard the chopping approach of the Super Lynx. A minute later, the chop sounded more distant. Then more distant still.

Madsen touched the left earpiece of his headset. He looked up at Hecker, frowning. "Sir-- the hangar crew reports-- the Lynx didn't land. It touched down briefly-- and then two people ran out and boarded it. It's heading for the coast now, sir."

Hecker felt the blood drain from his face. "Notify the captain, Mr. Madsen."

* * *

A dream. Deja vu, maybe. In the distance, approaching, a chop of rotors. Comfortable, warm, mostly asleep, Jim murmured, near her shoulder: "Selena, d'yeh hear--?" 

She murmured back: "Yeah, I do--" But she was as mostly asleep as he was, and as comfortable, Jim's warm lean self pressing just right along her back and bum and the rears of her thighs, and then the chop was fading again, and gone, and they missed it not at all.

* * *

Then-- not a dream. A thumping at the door. Jim woke sharply. Selena woke sharply, too. He drew away from her and sat up: "Who is it?" 

Across the dark cabin, beyond the door, muffled: "Mr. Skjol, sir."

"Wait, yeah--?" The shock of the air, cold after all that cuddling. Jim switched on the wall lamp, pulled on his trousers, pulled his sweatshirt over his head and arms and torso en route to the door. He opened it. "What's goin' on, Mr. Skjol--?"

Deferential but worried: that was the look on the stocky first officer's face. A touch embarrassed, too, when he glanced past Jim to Selena, sitting up on the bed in her makeshift nightwear. "It's Miss Davis, sir--"

"Who--?" Jim asked.

"Hannah?" Selena said. All the sleep was gone from her voice. She got up, approached the door. "What's happened to her?"

"We're not entirely certain." Skjol shrugged tightly, his face worried behind its tidy beard. "All we know is, she's no longer on the ship. She and Mr. Dalton: they're gone."


	12. Chapter 11

At three-forty-five, Hannah Davis and Larry Dalton left the _Helvig_ aboard a helicopter claiming or quite likely to be the _Helvig_'s service-supplied Super Lynx. By four-thirty, the _Helvig_ had returned to the point of their leaving. It was a clear summer morning near the Arctic Circle, and the sun was rising. The _Helvig_'s captain was already up.

Selena and Jim, reaching the bridge with Skjol, found Piotr and Robbie and Laurel there ahead of them. Laurel looked awful, very pale, very angry. Andersen was in the middle of a civil but bitter tirade against a man they'd never seen, uniformed, average height, a slight roundness to his face.

"Second Officer Hecker," Skjol said quietly. "He was the officer in charge when Miss Davis and Mr. Dalton left us--"

Selena, catching the look on Laurel's face, approached her, touched her elbow. "What happened?"

"Christ almighty, Selena, I'm sorry--" The Scots girl's eyes were even more intent than usual. "He came to th' door around-- it must've been half-three. I was half asleep, an' I was fuckin' selfish-- He came to th' door an' asked for Hannah, an' I just let her step out with 'im-- I shoulda-- I shoulda known--"

"How?" Selena looked at her evenly, squeezed her shoulders. "Laurel, how could you have known--?"

"I dunno; I--"

"Did he say anything to her? Did yeh hear--?" Jim joined them. "Dalton-- was he threatenin' her--?"

"No-- not that I--"

Leo Chaney, even more gloriously homely for being unshaven, came in and over. "Where the hell'd he take her?"

"We're determining that now, sir," said Skjol. "It's not as though they're trying to remain unfound--"

"'They're'--? Who are 'they'?" Piotr demanded. His face held something hard and fearful, something Selena hadn't before seen. Somehow, knowing that he was frightened made the situation that much worse.

"We do not know exactly their number or identity. They've landed the Lynx just inshore. We can track it via transponder. Who they are, though-- At approximately three-thirty this morning, Second Officer Hecker and his radio officer spoke with a man calling himself Isaac Johnson--"

"'Isaac--'" Jim echoed.

"Yes, sir. Purporting to be from Infinity Base, West Yorkshire--"

"Jesus--" Selena breathed. "Jim-- they--"

"They found us." They weren't touching, and still she felt him tense. A line of dark energy twitched through the muscles in his face and jaw. "Isaac Johnson--? Hell-- it's John Isaacs. The fucker. He wanted me-- he wanted us--"

"What, Mr. Sullivan?" Andersen had finished with Mr. Hecker. He approached, haggard but hard-focused. Skjol stepped aside for him.

"He wanted us dead, sir," Jim said.

"Dead, Mr. Sullivan--?"

"I think 'hanged' would imply that," Selena replied. Her voice was bitter and harsh in her ears. "He-- they-- whoever he was working for, they thought we'd killed someone they knew--"

"West," said Jim. "It was West. Major Henry West. He an' his men-- Captain, they took us in, an' we thought-- We thought they'd--"

"We thought they'd protect us. Long story short, Captain--" Selena met Andersen's eyes levelly. He looked back at her openly and let her speak. "They tried to kill Jim. They tried to rape me and Hannah. West was in charge. The bastard had it all thought out. Women for his men: us. He shot Jim, and we killed him, escaping."

"Hannah killed him," Piotr corrected, softly. "She told me."

"So Mr. Isaacs will kill Hannah to avenge Major West." Andersen spoke coldly.

"He will-- or whoever he's workin' for--" Jim was trying to keep his voice even; Selena could hear it. "Captain Andersen, we have to help her--"

"Do we?" Andersen countered. "How well do I know you, Mr. Sullivan? How well indeed?"

"Yeh don't, sir--" He could have exploded: Jim. He was a quiet man. Selena loved that in him: she knew he would have in him more peace in any given hour than she would know in a month. But she'd seen him violent, and suddenly, lethally so. She had no doubt he could kill Andersen. The thought hung in her mind as a perfect frozen moment of terror--

"Yeh don't know us at all," Jim continued. His back was straight, his hands at his sides. His face was calm. "We've nothin' t' tell yeh who we are or what we are. We're nobody an' nothin'. All we have is ourselves. Think what yeh like of me an' Selena. Arrest us if yeh have to. But, please, sir: help Hannah."

A pause. A count of five or seven while Andersen and Jim looked back at one another with their clear nearly matched eyes. Then Andersen relaxed, ever so slightly. "A test, Mr. Sullivan: I apologize." He reached out, rested his hand for a moment on Jim's shoulder. "Forgive me." He drew back, called to the officer at the communications post: "Mr. Barring, any word from our Super Lynx?"

"None, sir. They're ignoring our hails."

"We'll have to speak to them in person, then. Mr. Skjol, arrange a landing party, if you--"

A seaman interrupted, calling back from the forward observation area: "Sir, we have a boat approaching. A Zodiac, from our shoreward side."

**X X X X X**

Smaller than the _Helvig_'s landing boat it was, the gray Zodiac bouncing through the waves and chop toward them. Two men were aboard it; by its dimensions, it might hold six. When it was near enough that the man driving throttled back the motor, the man not navigating cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted: "Ahoy, the _Helvig_--!"

They were waiting at the top of the landing stairs near the helipad. Andersen and Skjol. Jim and Selena, Robbie and grim Laurel. Chaney. Piotr, glowering. Four seamen, armed. A fifth caught a line tossed from the Zodiac. While he bound the boat to the _Helvig_, its passengers came up the gridded steps.

"Morning, folks." A drawl, a hangdog face, a strong build in a blue jacket, _Western Star_ stitched in white above a white star at the left side of the chest. With Burns standing slightly behind him, John Isaacs looked at Jim and Selena and smiled. "Man, we've been chasing you kids for days."

"You son of a--" Selena stepped forward. Burns, possibly still haunted by the ghosts of nose-shots past, shrank slightly back. Isaacs held his ground and drew an automatic from his jacket pocket. He pointed it at Selena's forehead.

"Down, girl," he said.

"Miss Miller--" Andersen, calmly. The sailors around him leveled their rifles at Isaacs and Burns. He motioned them down; he waited for Selena to move back. Then he asked: "What can we do for you, Mr.--"

"Isaacs. John Isaacs. Glad to meet you, Captain--"

Jim snapped: "Where th' fuck is Hannah, you prick bastard?"

"Am I talking to you, Jim? I think not." Isaacs' smile became patronizing. "The captain and I have business to discuss. So shut up for just a sec, okay--?"

Jim went quiet, shaking, his eyes murderous. Isaacs said to Andersen: "Okay, Captain--"

"Andersen."

"--Andersen. That's with an 'e' at the end, isn't it? Cool. Anyway, I know you're a busy guy-- patrols to complete, all that stuff, so here it is. Short form: You let me an' Burnsy here take Jim and Selena off your hands, and you're free to go on your way."

Andersen's voice was a very quiet growl: "And if I refuse?"

"Hannah dies." Isaacs snapped out his wrist, looked at a sportswatch likely priced in direct proportion to its black-and-chrome bulk. "In forty-five minutes. We're not back by then, Larry puts a bullet in her head."

"Oh, no," Selena breathed out. "No, no, no--"

Burns grinned at her. "After he's done with her, that is. Had his eyes on her, from what I could--"

He'd been very still. Piotr. He moved now, and it was like all the power and motion of a three-day-gone runaway locomotive compressed into three seconds. He barreled into Burns; his right hand went to Burns' face, his left to the base of the man's skull, and from Burns' neck came a cracking like a handful of pencils snapping in the clear air. Burns dropped. In second four, Piotr turned on Isaacs--

"Piotr--!" Andersen shouted.

Isaacs had brought the automatic around, and he was pointing it at Piotr's left eye. The young Russian became a figure carved from granite, his blue eyes mica-fleck-hard. He froze, staring at Isaacs past the barrel of the gun.

"God _damn_, that was _fast_--" Isaacs was incredulous. But not incredulous enough to render his gun hand less than flagstone-steady. He smiled slightly at Piotr. "Whoa, boy. Easy now. All y'all--" He glanced down at Burns-- just a second; he looked around him at all the angry, shocked faces, focused on Andersen. "So, Captain, time's tickin' away here. Do we have a deal?"

Jim looked from Andersen to Selena. He stepped forward. "We do."

Selena joined him. "Yeah--"

Andersen stayed quiet, watching them. Isaacs grinned. "Groovy. Only thing--" He glanced again at dead, neck-twisted Burns, and his expression got a little sheepish. "--looks like I'm out a driver. Me, I'm a city boy; I'm shit with boats. Anyone here handy with a Zodiac?"

"I am." Robbie came forward. "My mum's a marine biologist; I practically grew up in one of those great bobbers--"

"That a fact?" Isaacs looked him over, nodded down the landing stairs. "You're hired. Get us ready to go."

Robbie tapped his forelock. "Aye, sir--"

He moved toward the stairs; Laurel caught his arm. "Robert, don't you go messin' about--"

He looked at her, smiled gently. "Laurelei, I would never dream of messing about in a boat."

Down to the Zodiac he went; a moment later, its motor gurgled and rumbled to life.

"One more thing," Isaacs said. "Need something to hobble Slugger here." He smiled at Selena. Then he hit Jim in the head, hard, with the gun. That fast. Jim dropped to his knees, stunned. "Better help him into the boat, honey. Time's a-wasting."

Selena knelt beside Jim. He was clutching his forehead over his left eye; blood was squeezing out beneath the heel of his hand. She could see: he was having trouble focusing. "Oh, Jesus--" She put her arm around him, pulled him to a stagger. "Jim, sweetheart, we have to go. Come on--"

Isaacs held the gun on Andersen while Selena stumbled with Jim to the Zodiac. Andersen remained still, watching him. Piotr, Laurel, Chaney, all the others: they remained still, too.

"Always a pleasure doing business with a reasonable man," Isaacs said to the _Helvig_'s captain. "Much obliged, Captain Andersen."

A final, smug smile. Then he went down the steel steps, and a moment later John Isaacs and his prisoners and the Zodiac were gone.

**X X X X X **

Not messing about in boats. Isaacs told Robbie where to go, and Robbie pointed the Zodiac exactly there: toward a cove just north of the _Helvig_'s position. A patch of grayish sand lay where they were heading, but rocky beach led south to the next cove over. Northward, a river flowed down through rock-slab shoring to the sea. The water near the gray-black slabs had to be deeper and colder than the Arctic summer sea beyond: ice bobbed in white tables and floes where the inlet met the ocean. Beyond the patch of sand at which Robbie was pointing the Zodiac stood an abandoned ancient hunting village, a cluster of stone huts huddled against a rocky coarse-grass hill.

Selena sat on the bottom of the Zodiac with Jim pulled against her; his muscles were lax, his breathing shallow. The gash in his forehead was bleeding freely. With the sleeve of her sweatshirt, she gently wiped blood away from his eyes. She looked past Isaacs to the shore, saw no one and no Lynx. "Where are they?" she asked. "Where's Hannah?"

"Parked up on the hill. Wanted t' keep out of sight, in case one of those damn Swedes got smart and took a shot with the deck cannon."

"Danes. They're Danish."

"Whatever."

Something in his tone-- something just that bit past insulting, past Hannah kidnapped, past Jim stunned and bleeding. "You have no idea how dead you are," Selena said.

Isaacs smiled at her, his face calm, his heavy-lidded eyes languid. "Whereas you, on the other hand, know exactly how dead you are. You think you have nothing to lose. Makes you strong, doesn't it--?" He pointed his automatic at Jim's stomach. "Maybe we need to take you down a notch--"

"Don't--!" Selena pulled Jim back, got herself between him and the gun.

"Then stop lookin' at me like you're thinking 'Fuck you.'" Isaacs' smile went a little crooked. "Or like you're thinking it in a _bad_ way. Maybe we could-- I dunno-- negotiate. Work something out. What do you think--?"

"No," Selena said, more quietly, her eyes on the automatic. "Not ever. Not for anything."

Isaacs glanced at Jim. "Not even to stop him getting dead--?"

"No."

"Wouldn't be unfaithful to your man even to save his life. Wow. That is so cool. Stupid as hell-- but cool." He looked out past her and Jim, at the water and the shore, nearing but still a ways off. "Will say, you folks have been nothing if not tenacious. Skittery as three damn cockroaches. I hired an assassin, I bought a whole boatload of pirates-- hell, I had an oil rig blown up right underneath ya, and you kids just would not die--"

"You did that-- the _Puffin_--"

"That-- and that Irish boat, yeah. Well, not me exactly-- give credit where it's due-- but I signed the checks. Rig was under-producing anyway. All those dead Brits not buyin' gas for their Jags. Adds up."

"You're insane--"

"Naw, just power-mad. Boss-man don't like t' flaunt it, so he lets me flaunt it for him." Isaacs grinned at her. "Hell, woman, it's not like I had 'em blow up the damn Chunnel on ya. Frenchies did that, 'bout five weeks back. No crazy-plague for ze Frogs, nosirree."

**X X X X X**

On the bridge of the _Helvig,_ Andersen's ice-blue eyes watched through binoculars the Zodiac nearing the patch of distant sandy shore. "Mr. Skjol--"

Skjol replied from the communications station: "Sir."

"You have a definite fix on the Lynx?"

"We do, sir." He joined Andersen at the side window, pointed left of the captain's binoculars. "Above that cove to the south. In those hills."

"Thank you, Mr. Skjol." Andersen lowered the binoculars, turned from the window to face those waiting. Piotr. Laurel. Chaney. The armed sailors who'd been on the helipad when Isaacs and Burns arrived. "Landing party. They would hear a motor; we will have to do without--"

"'We,' sir?" Skjol frowned.

"I am leading this mission, Mr. Skjol. The _Helvig_ I leave in your capable hands."

"Thank you, sir."

Andersen nodded, continued: "As I was saying, we will forgo a motor--"

"Paddle in--?" said Piotr. "Time will permit--?"

"The current here is not so strong. Stealth, Mr. Kalinovich. Gray clothing or marine-arctic camouflage, and we will go quietly."

"Who?"

"Myself. You--"

"Me," said Chaney. "I'm goin'."

"Me, too," said Laurel.

Andersen shook his head. "Out of the question, Miss Urquhart. You are not--"

"You give me a fuckin' rifle, an' I'll show yeh what I am."

A thin smile. "Alright, then, Miss Urquhart. You are with us."

**X X X X X **

In the distance, a landing. Across the pebbled beach to the rocky hills: Isaacs with his pistol, Robbie, Selena, Jim's arm pulled across her shoulder, Jim stumbling beside her. He'd nearly passed out in the Zodiac; now his head hurt like hell and the cut over his eye was stinging and dribbling, but his focus was returning bit by bit. He looked about discreetly, keeping his head low. The variegated rough shore quickly cracked sightlines: they hadn't climbed high or far when the Zodiac was no longer visible on its patch of sand, when the stone-slab riverbank to the north and the southward rocky beach had passed from view. Isaacs stopped them at the crest of a hill decked in lichen and coarse short grass. Wind flicked from the west, ghosted with ice-shelf cold.

"We're back, Tom," Isaacs called.

Boulders, glacier-dropped, possibly thirty feet ahead. A man stepped out from behind them; Larry Dalton followed. Hannah was with him; he had her left arm gripped tight in one hand, a gun in the other.

"And there she is!" Isaacs said cheerfully. "Our guest of honor."

Hannah walked before Dalton. He jabbed at her back with the gun. She was shaking; she was pale; Jim could see she'd been trying not to cry. He eased his arm off Selena's shoulder, stood on his own. His footing was weak but steady. He hoped no one would notice. He looked out noncommittally at Dalton, at the man who had to be Isaacs' Tom. Young fiftyish, balding, tall, well dressed for the Greenland chill. Strong build on him. Pale face, intent emotionless eyes. A man of power, he looked. Accustomed to observing, analyzing. He was analyzing them from his own distance even now.

Selena seemed not even to see him. Unburdened, she tried to go to Hannah; Isaacs tapped her with his gun. She flinched, steadied herself. "Hannah-- sweetheart, are you okay?"

"Yeah." Her voice caught. "Selena, I'm so sorry. I thought you an' Jim were here. He said you were; he-- they brought me here--"

"Shh, Hannah--" Jim spoke. "It's gonna be fine, darlin'. Don't worry, now."

"Ah: no." Isaacs chuckled, shook his head. "Much as I hate to disappoint anyone-- Hannah, honey, it's not gonna be fine--"

"Where's Mr. Burns, John?" asked the man standing apart from Dalton and Hannah.

"Big kid on the _Helvig_ killed him."

"That's too bad." His voice was reasonable, quiet. He paused for a moment. His emotionless eyes seemed to be watching something in addition to the cold windy present, a remembered report, possibly, in his skull. He frowned at it slightly, gestured open-palmed toward Isaacs. "Please, John: continue."

"Thanks, Tom." Isaacs smiled. "See, I had this idea on the way over, flying out from Reykjavik, and Tom-- Tom, he just loves it."

Said Tom in his calm voice: "From what we garnered from your statements at Infinity, Hannah was the one who killed Major West."

"So all of this--" Selena, incredulous: "All of this _is_ about that--?"

"Yes."

"Who are you--?"

"Thomas West. Owner, Western Star Oil and Gas. Major West-- the Major West whom Hannah murdered outside that house in Manchester-- he was my dead brother's only son. My only nephew."

Unsteadiness was revisiting Jim, chill and unreality compounding the ache in his head. He spoke as evenly as he could: "Mr. West-- we're sorry he died. We're sorry any of 'em died. Please--" The gash over his eye throbbed in the wind. He looked at West. "You can't possibly excuse what they were tryin' t' do--"

"The lies you told? About the attempted rapes? About them trying to kill you?"

"Yes--"

"Like I said: lies. Henry was an honorable man. He took you in, gave you shelter--"

"And we murdered the lot of 'em why?" Selena's voice rose in anger. "For _fun_?"

"If you weren't killers, you could not have survived. Not when so many others died--"

"Y'know," said Isaacs, "I hate to interrupt-- this is all very deep and psychological-- but it is freaking cold out here. I suggest we move along. Tom--? Tom, you wanna outline the plan?"

West caught his nod, tipped his head in reply. "Certainly, John."

"It's so poetic. You'll love it." Isaacs winked at Jim.

West, speaking, looked at them in turn. His captive audience. Selena, Jim, Hannah. Robbie, still before Isaacs' gun. "Mr. Isaacs and I are each carrying a phial of blood. Human blood. One phial is infected with the virus-- the rage virus; the other is not. Jim and Selena: you each get a phial. The three of you-- you and Hannah-- will go out there-- down on the beach, there-- and you, Jim and Selena, will ingest the contents of your phials. The one infected will attack Hannah and-- presumably-- the other one, the one not infected. Do you follow me--?"

"What if we don't--?" Jim asked quietly.

"If you don't drink the blood, we'll simply shoot the three of you."

Selena looked from Hannah to Jim. "Shoot us, then."

Isaacs raised his automatic and put the muzzle to Jim's temple. Selena flinched, hard-- and he smiled, lowered the barrel. "Love's a bitch, ain't it?"

"Hannah left Henry to be torn apart," West said. "We thought it only right that she suffer the same fate. Only she'll have a chance--"

"What chance?" Jim rasped.

"You've fought the infected and survived. You could do it again now." West tipped his head toward Selena. "Let's say hers is the infected blood. She attacks Hannah; she attacks you. And you manage to kill her, without becoming infected yourselves. You and Hannah are free."

"You'd kill us."

"No."

"We'd tell people what you'd done. Captain Andersen, the Danish government. The American government--"

"Jim, I'm an oil man. Do you know what that means? Pharmaceuticals, petroleum, and the legal industry are the pillars of American society. As far as you're concerned, I'm untouchable. When I leave here, for all intents and purposes, this incident will cease to exist. As will you."

"I think it's a fair offer, buddy," Isaacs said. "Think you'd better take it."

"What about me?" Robbie asked.

"You we shoot." Just that quickly, Isaacs took aim at Robbie's head and pulled the--

Jim hit Isaacs' arm. The shot went wide.

Three things. Four. Robbie jumped aside, bumped Hannah and Dalton. Hannah twisted away from Dalton; Robbie shoved her ahead of himself. "Hannah, run--!" He and she shot off down the rough hill, ran southward down the rocky beach. Selena broke from West and ran in the opposite direction, north, toward the river mouth and the table ice bobbing there. West went after her.

Jim tried-- he tried to bolt, too. But he was still weak from the blow he'd received on the _Helvig_, not as fast as he might have been. Isaacs swept his feet, rapped his skull again with the pistol, and Jim's knees buckled and hit the rocky ground.

"You fucker," Isaacs said. "You little fucker--" He grabbed Jim by the forehead and dug his fingers into the gash there, and Jim shouted in pain. Isaacs looked at Dalton, nodded after Hannah and Robbie. "Get her. Shoot him."

They had yet to pass from view, Robbie and Hannah, running, growing already smaller in their flight. Jim, his eyes blurred with pain and blood, watched numbly from the ground as Dalton went to the crest of the hill, aimed carefully, fired.

Just-distant Robbie stumbled and fell, hard, on the rocky beach. Hannah kept running, after the slightest hitching, the barest registering of shock in her stride. She rounded the outcropping separating the rough beach from the cove to the south and disappeared.

"I'll go get her," Dalton said, starting off down the hill, gun in hand.

Isaacs looked from where she'd vanished to where Robbie lay unmoving. "Make sure he's dead first. She won't get far."

"Will do, Johnny."

Dalton picked his way to the beach. "This way, Jimbo," said Isaacs. He pulled Jim to his feet, shoved him in the direction Selena and West had gone, toward the table-rock riverbank and the bobbing slabs of white ice.

Behind and below them, from the beach, a gunshot cracked the cold air. Jim flinched, his heart lurching in his chest.

"Guess the little fruit wasn't dead," Isaacs said.

**X X X X X **

On the beach, Robbie lay very still, the side of his head and his neck splattered with blood.

But it wasn't his.

"Robert--?" Laurel said tentatively, She prodded him gently with a booted toe; she was standing over him with a borrowed rifle, wearing a borrowed jacket in patches of dark gray, blue, dirty white. Dalton lay dead, a hole in his skull, a few feet away. "Robbie, please--"

"I think I broke my spleen," Robbie mumbled to the beach. He rolled over, looked over at Dalton, sprawling and quite deceased, and tossed aside a rock the size of a grapefruit. "Won't be needing that, then."

"Oh, get up, yeh wee skulkin' hen."

Robbie beamed at her, rising. "I'm delighted to see you, too, Laurelei."

**X X X X X **

Just after the second shot, just after Isaacs announced Robbie's death to Jim, Hannah, gasping, her eyes filling with tears, rounded the outcropping parting the stony beach from the cove to the south and ran right into a bear.

Nearly. It was nearly a bear. Nearly bear-sized, bear-built, bear-tall. It caught her in its nearly bear-strong arms. She shrieked; she kicked at it; she thrashed at it with her fists until it said: "Hannah, stop. Stop--"

"Piotr--?"

"Shh--"

She threw her arms around him, clung to him. Piotr hugged her close.

"They've got-- they've got Jim an' Selena--" Hannah, less panicked, still breathless. "I don't know if-- if-- I heard someone shootin'. I think they mighta shot Robbie--"

"Mr. Oldsen is quite well." Captain Andersen was beside them, looking past the outcropping to the beach. "Not so Mr. Dalton. Miss Urquhart is an amazing shot."

Quiet movement from above, to the left. Leo Chaney came stealthily down from the westward hills. "Two guys at the chopper," he said to Andersen. "Knocked 'em cold. Gregersen's keeping an eye on 'em. But I'm thinkin' there might be more."

Piotr nodded, looking to the captain. "What now?"

"We get in behind them," Andersen said. "The ones holding Mr. Sullivan and Miss Miller."

"Hey, kid." Chaney smiled at Hannah, reached over, touched her cheek with rough fingertips. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

"Glad t' hear it." He looked from her to Andersen. "Captain, can I make a suggestion--?"

"Certainly, Mr. Chaney."

"Me an' Mighty Joe Young here--" -- a nod toward Piotr-- "we'll get 'em. You watch out for Hannah."

"Very well. Mr. Kalinovich-- you and Mr. Chaney move in from the beach. I will provide cover from here. And Piotr: mind those huts. Miss Urquhart--" -- to Laurel, trotting up with her rifle and with Robbie, who found himself smiling and wrapped in a hug with Hannah a moment later-- "-- you're our sniper."

"Bloody right I am."

"From above, if you please. Go with her, Mr. Oldsen," he added, to Robbie. He nodded toward the hills north- and westward; he glanced at Chaney and Piotr. "Good luck, all of you. Go."

"An' bloody well keep quiet," Laurel growled at Robbie, not unaffectionately. "Yeh make more noise'n a fuckin' avalanche, Robert." She turned and trotted off toward the north hills with her rifle. Robbie grinned briefly at her back and followed. Before they left the tumbled beach, he paused and picked up another grapefruit-sized stone and carried it along with him.

**X X X X X **

Selena had run out of earth.

She was at the water's edge, standing on a low rock ledge above the lightless blue of the river, the shifting thick tables of floating ice. Jim saw her look out at the river, at the sea beyond. West was right behind her, a gun in his right hand.

"Tell her to come back," Isaacs growled.

Jim spoke around the dizzy sick pain in his knocked skull: "Fuck yeh--"

Isaacs punched him, hard, in the small of the back. Not quite a kidney shot, but shocking and heavy enough to knock Jim off balance. He stumbled; his legs folded--

From the river bank, West called back: "I've got her."

Jim looked after the voice, found Selena looking back at him from across the cold distance. She met his eyes, as she always had, with fearless clarity. Then, as West approached her, she turned again to the sea and stepped down onto a bobbing white slab of ice.

"No--" Jim tried to stand; Isaacs shoved him down.

On the bank, West hesitated. Then he stepped out onto the ice with Selena. "Where do you plan to go--?"

She said nothing; she crossed the first slab of ice and stepped onto the next one farther out. Farther from shore.

**X X X X X **

Piotr and Chaney, approaching the stone huts of the hunting village, moving quickly but cautiously over the rough ground, against the line of rocky hills: from within the dark jagged maze of walls they saw motion. For just a moment, just a hint. A shred of hide on a drying rack, twitching in the wind, or dry grass rustling--

Or not. Chaney motioned to Piotr: _Keep going. I'll check it out._

Piotr nodded, kept moving. Chaney broke silently and quickly to the left, disappeared amongst the huts.

Bastard with a rifle. Sure enough. He was drawing a bead on Piotr when Chaney came up on him. Keeping an eye on his bosses, not on the beach. Might have been over just like that, with the butt of Chaney's pistol cracking the back of the goon's head, only Chaney's boots, until now so perfectly soundless, skittered on a loose patch of gravel. The rifleman turned at the clattering, Chaney lunged at him, and he and the goon commenced grappling.

**X X X X X **

Seconds later: farther out still. Slab three, unstable, the dark water lapping over its edges. Selena led; West followed--

"This is getting ridiculous," Isaacs said. "Here!" he shouted at the water. "Got something special for Jimbo here."

Selena paused. She was meters from shore now, six or better, and West was just stepping onto the current slab with her. She looked back at Jim. Above him, Isaacs reached inside his jacket with his left hand, the hand not holding the automatic. He brought out a glass phial filled with a deep red liquid. He held it away from his body, so that she could see it even at her distance.

"You get your ass off that ice, Selena," Isaacs called, "or Killer here gets his cocktail now. I know, I know--" --he grinned, shook his head-- "--kinda ruins the surprise. But I got the bad one saved up for our boy Jim--"

"Oh, fuck--" Jim tried to stand; he shouted: "Selena, stay there--!"

He was nearly on his feet when Isaacs slammed his right elbow into his shoulder: a hollow breathless explosion of pain followed, black stars shattering behind his eyes. Isaacs grabbed Jim's hair, twisted his head back. "It goes in your eye, in your mouth, up your fucking nose, it doesn't matter." He tipped the tube so that a drop hung at the crystal lip. "Ready to live a little, Jim--?"

**X X X X X **

Piotr, watching from just beyond the last of the stone huts, half-crouched. Sixty meters ahead of him, between him and the estuary, Jim was on his knees, Isaacs standing over him, shouting down to the water, to a Selena Piotr could not see. Isaacs' back was to him, but there was no more shelter between Piotr and the shore--

_Where was Laurel--? _Hers was the longer path, up and through the rocky hills, but she and Robbie should have been there by now. If their path had been clear, that was. He glanced back, up into the boulders, saw nothing. From behind him, no gunshots, but no sign of Chaney, either--

He leveled his automatic. Andrej's automatic. With his free hand, he held his gun hand steady. He took aim at the base of Isaacs' neck--

**X X X X X **

Thirty feet from shore, a hundred and fifty feet from stunned and broken Jim, Selena saw the glitter of crystal over his head--

"Wait--! No!" she shouted. The ice beneath her feet and West's was rotating slowly in the blue-black water; they turned with it. West was beside her now, his gun trained at her back.

"You ready to play nice, honey?" Isaacs called to her.

"Yeah, I am. Jim--"

He couldn't see her. Blood-- his own-- was blearing his eyes, and Isaacs' twisting grip on his scalp was pointing his face to the light of the morning sky. He could only hear her becoming quiet. More than anything else, that quiet terrified him. "Selena, don't--"

"It has to end here. It has to, sweetheart. We both know that."

"Just fuckin' stay back. Please, Selena--"

"Goodbye, Jim--"

**X X X X X**

His eyes on Isaacs' back, Piotr pulled the trigger.

From Andrej's automatic, a click. Nothing more.

_Misfire--_

**X X X X X **

She twisted sideways. Selena did. She threw herself against West, shouldered into him. The floe tipped beneath them; he shouted in surprise. The gun went off, flew from his hand. Both he and Selena went into the water. Went in, splashing, flailing.

And went under, there amongst the drifting white slabs.

**X X X X X**

A second click. One too many. Piotr silently cursed the gun, cursed himself for having taken it--

**X X X X X **

"Fuck--!" Isaacs shouted. "Tom!" He snarled down at Jim, tipped the phial toward the bleeding gash on his head. "Try this, you little--"

**X X X X X **

A desperate looking. A weapon, anything. Rocks--? Ridiculous--

Piotr saw: against the north wall of the nearest hut, the last one between the hunting village and the river, something leaning. Several somethings. Stick-slender, long, rusted or rust-colored above, wrapped tightly in graying cracked hide below--

He dashed for the hut, grabbed and hefted, turned back toward Isaacs and Jim, and threw--

**X X X X X**

A red drop, shuddering at the lip of the phial. Jim knew it was there more than he could see it. She was gone. Selena was gone, and he and the drop were alone in time, and beyond the pain in his head and shoulder and the red blurring in his eyes, said time was moving very slowly indeed--

Then: a fleshy thud. Something sharp whisked past Jim's temple. Time and his mind refocused. He twisted away; the falling drop of infected blood just missed his cut forehead, his left eye. He sprawled on his back on the rocky ground, free of Isaacs' grip, and looked--

Isaacs stood above him, wavering on his feet, looking down at himself. A rusty barbed steel head on a rust-brown steel shaft was protruding from his midriff.

Wonderingly, he said: "That's a harpoon. That's a fucking harpoon."

He reached to touch the shaft. Then he noticed his hand.

The phial had shattered. The bloody glass was embedded in his palm.

"Well, _shit,_" he said. Jim was on his feet now, backing away from him, toward the water. Isaacs grinned at him. "If this just don't beat all--"

Jim saw Piotr running up behind Isaacs; Jim turned and ran full-out for the stone-slab shore, the bobbing floes, desperation negating the pain in his head, the dizziness. Behind him, Isaacs' eyes went hemorrhage-red; he leaped after Jim's back. He leaped, was jerked back--

There was a worn seal-gut line strung from the butt of the harpoon. Piotr had it wrapped about his hands. He rushed Isaacs before he could turn; he shoved him face-down and snarling onto the rocky ground, and he impaled him there.

"For Andrej," he said-- for this man, this thrashing monster, was the man from Infinity, the man who'd stared into the shadows at Piotr after Andrej died. "For Hannah. For Selena--" He leaned on the harpoon; Isaacs screamed, clawed at him. Chaney, his business among the stone huts at a satisfactory and deadly end, came running up. "Finish him," Piotr said.

**X X X X X **

_On that first helicopter ride, she'd held his hand--_

Behind him, a single gunshot. Jim ran without pausing onto the shifting ice.

_Tell you about my fears someday._

He paused, looking, desperately scanning the water--

_A week later, aboard a ship of the Danish navy, as he held her in the safe warm darkness, she'd said, "It's odd--"_

_Just three hours ago, just a murmur. Caught his ears between dreams, it had._

"_Mm, love--?" he murmured back._

(No sign of them. How long had it been? Forty-five seconds--? A minute?)

_She sighed, shifting against him. "We're living on the sea-- and I can't swim."_

_Jim nuzzled her neck. Her skin was warm and perfect. "Have t' teach yeh, then."_

"_Somewhere nice."_

"_Sure."_

Not here. Not off the coast of Greenland. Forty degrees, Leo had said. Give or take. Forty bloody degrees Fahrenheit--

He had no idea what it would feel like, going in. He didn't care. He ran farther onto the ice, his body weight negligible, his boots nimble on and between the floes. His eyes swept the water sharply, frantically--

There

Ten meters ahead, possibly four meters down, falling and tumbling away through water like blue glass, two figures. And-- his heart choked as he saw-- a twisting purplish smoke-trail of blood--

He didn't hesitate. He sprinted for them as far as the ice would take him-- he heard a shout behind him, Leo's voice: "No, Jim--!"-- and he dove in.

Shock. Pure, crystal shock.

Any pain he'd felt that day, any pain he'd felt ever, even the gunshot to his midriff: it didn't compare to this terrible immersion. Jim struggled to hold his breath, to force himself away from the surface. To swim. The water-- the icy water: it was as though his muscles were constricting fast and hard enough to shatter his bones, which in turn threatened to extrude in shards through his tightening skin--

He opened his eyes, diving; it was like having nails driven into his sockets. He teared up against the salt of the water and pulled and kicked downward. Ahead, toward the blood trail, the bodies beyond--

Reaching out and forward. The cold was crushing the air from his lungs. His fingers found a slender wrist. He saw only that Selena's eyes were closed; she didn't respond when he touched her. West--

Jim didn't care. His lungs wouldn't let him care. Fuck the oil man, the murdering demon, wherever he was in this cold airless hell. Jim got an arm around Selena and hauled her toward the surface. She wasn't moving; she was limp against him.

He broke the surface with her, gasping. He held her head above the water, kicked on his back for the nearest ice. A slab possibly four meters across, sharp-edged, thick: he shoved her up onto it as best he could. The water pulled at her; it pulled at him. He nearly went under, lifting her up--

From the shore, running out toward them: Chaney, Piotr. "You crazy bastard!" Chaney shouted. Jim's face twitched. A rictus smile: he was shuddering from top to toe. Selena was up on the ice, and very still, and he tried to pull himself up beside her. But he found himself suddenly exhausted, hanging there in the water; he reached with twitching fingers for a crack in the floe--

Something grabbed his left ankle. A jerking hand. Hands. At his knee, his waist, up his back, clawing to his shoulders. West surfaced behind him, gasping. He pulled at Jim savagely; Jim's fingers missed the crack in the ice, and the part of his torso that had made it onto the floe went back into the terrible water. He thrashed at the renewed shock of it; he thrashed, then, at something else--

Like a line of acid drawn through the cold: the first slash. West had a knife. The blade slit a long diagonal through Jim's sweatshirt, stung its way across his back. He arched, shouting in shock and pain; the blade slipped, nearly tangled in the fabric of his shirt. West almost lost his numb grip--

But he held on. He stabbed Jim again. The blade-tip bit Jim's right shoulder and stuck. Jim flailed, grabbed, caught a wrist. Pain burst in red flashes behind his eyes. Red. Red as blood--

_Christ Jesus. They spread infection--_

Adrenaline. Shock. Building in him, spastic. He lost his grip on the floe, lost it completely--

_On a razor. On a knife blade--_

He twisted in the water, turned on West. West lost his grip on the knife. It stayed in Jim's shoulder.

_Isaacs. Chaplin. This bastard here--_

The water wouldn't support their struggling selves. West clawed at Jim, his face a mixture of fury and panic. Fear.

_He's infected me._

His last lucid thought. Then it took him. Jim heard himself shout or howl-- something-- and then all was pain and rage and a blood-redness in his mind that forced out everything that was him and left nothing but the shaking unshakable grip of his fingers on West's throat as he pushed the man under. West's flailing left hand stumbled across the knife in Jim's shoulder and caught the handle and twisted it, and Jim screamed a gurgling furious scream and ground his fingers toward each other until they drew from West's neck a series of pops as hard as icicles cracking. The man went limp. He sank. Jim's grip failed a moment later.

He followed the drawing weight of West's death. His eyes were as open as West's as his head went under. The water shoved up under his lids like steel shutters. West's body fell away into the dark clear water, and Jim fell after him. The cold stilled the rage in his mind.

_Better like this--_

But then, into the shirt fabric on his unwounded shoulder, a twisting, a gripping of strong fingers. A pulling upward. His head broke the surface; his body forced itself to breathe. He looked backward and up and saw Piotr, his face set with the effort of parting Jim from the water.

"Don't--" The word choked behind spasms in Jim's throat. _Don't touch me--_

He was already out of the water, over the floe's rough edge. Piotr dragged him to the center of the ice, lifted him carefully, and carried him to the shore. He stepped up and clear of the water and laid Jim, shaking, on a black stone slab. Beside Selena, a double arm's length away.

He turned his head toward her. Salt and cold fouled his vision. Tears. He could see: she wasn't moving, not at all--

"Is she clear--?" Laurel, kneeling beside her. "Robbie-- Jesus, she's shot."

"Clear, Laurel." Robbie, kneeling too, leaning in over Selena's face. He tipped her head just so and opened his mouth over hers, blew air into her lungs--

Another pulling. Jim numbly turned his head as Laurel started in at Selena's sternum, pumping in short controlled pushings with the heels of her hands. He found himself looking up at Captain Andersen.

_You have to kill me_-- He tried to speak; he heard himself groan. The pulling was Andersen easing Jim onto his greatcoat, spread out on the shore.

"It's alright, Jim," he said gently.

"No--" The word, this time, audible. Just the one, though, through the shaking and the pain. _Look at my eyes--_

But Andersen _was_ looking. No horror in his face, no fear, no grim resolution. His expression was kind and tragic. He folded his heavy coat around Jim's shuddering torso.

"No--" Laurel now, frustrated. Her voice carried the hint of a sob. "Robbie, it's no good--"

Hannah was there, between Chaney and Piotr. Jim only just realized it. He lay watching them watch Selena, the two working over her.

"Piotr," Andersen said, sharply, "the helicopter. Fetch it, please."

Hannah's eyes were filled with tears. "Go with 'im, Hannah," Jim said. His jaw was heavy and shuddering, but the words came out clearly. "Go on now, darlin'."

She looked at him, her face working. Then Piotr caught her hand in his, and they ran for the beach, the Lynx in the hills beyond.

**X X X X X **

He was drifting. Robbie and Laurel were still trying, but they were becoming indistinct, slightly and increasingly distant. Andersen took a handset from his pocket and spoke to the _Helvig,_ but Jim heard none of the words. He felt warm in Andersen's coat, though he could feel no part of his body distinctly. Not even his slashed back, his punctured shoulder. He could barely feel himself breathing. He blinked slowly, more slowly still, at Robbie and Laurel. At Selena.

Her right arm was angled toward him on the ground, her hand out but not reaching. Too far away to touch. But her stillness crept across to him, across the smooth gray stone of the shore. It filled him; it quieted the remainder of his shaking. It stilled his heart in his chest. He took a last look at her beautiful face-- she was dead, wasn't she?-- and closed his eyes.

_Wait for me, love,_ he thought. _I'll be right there._


	13. 28 hours later

28 hours later...

**XXXXXX **

"Did I miss the funeral?"

Selena had been looking to the left. Jim was there, asleep. He was very pale; his forehead was bandaged. He was lying in dry clothes, blue trousers too big, a gray sweatshirt, flat on his belly on a metal-frame cot. He was hugging his pillow half beneath him.

"Only yours." Dr. Huelsmann spoke from elsewhere. Not toward Jim.

"That's good." To no one in particular, Selena added: "My mouth is dry."

"Here." A hand touched her jaw, gently; Selena turned her head. Dr. Huelsmann came into view, her expression devoid of severity. A spoon touched Selena's lips. Ice chips. _More bloody ice._ She smiled, just a little; she closed her eyes again and swallowed as the ice became water in her mouth.

**XXXXXX**

Her next waking came with realizations. Her eyes told her she was in the _Helvig_'s sickbay. An IV line ran off the back of her left hand. Clear liquid in the tubing. She was wearing blue cotton pajamas several sizes too large. The blanket across her midriff felt too heavy against her, and her right shoulder and side felt as though they'd been broken apart and riveted back together in a south Asian automobile plant. But she was otherwise warm and muzzy and not utterly uncomfortable. Morphine, or the like. A slight sense of cramping across her gut, minor halos of steel wool around her peripherals.

Jim was sitting in a high-backed chair on her right, reading a hardback book. The cot he'd been asleep on was still set up to the left of her bed, rumpled, empty. He looked rumpled, too. She looked at him for a moment without speaking, watched his clean profile. He was hunched a little in the chair, as though his shoulder were bothering him; he was dressed in the same or another gray sweatshirt, and he was a day unshaven. She tried to see what he was reading, but her eyes on seeing the words on the page immediately threatened her with sleep. She looked from the page back to his face and said: "Jim."

He turned his eyes to her, and it was like looking into heaven through a gap in the clouds. He smiled. "Hello, darlin'."

"Hi."

He set aside the book and said, gently, "Really can't swim worth a damn, can yeh?"

"Had a bullet weighing me down, didn't I?"

"No, you didn't," said Dr. Huelsmann, from the left. She maneuvered in past Jim's cot, checked Selena's IV. "It was a through-and-through. Still makes a damn good excuse, though." She looked down at Selena critically but kindly. "Are you awake enough to hear the gory details?"

"Sure."

Dr. Huelsmann seated herself on the rumpled cot. "Twenty-two caliber. Entered right below the scapula on your right side, cracked a couple ribs, and went right on out. Not much of a trip, actually: you're the skinniest damn thing I've ever worked on. Except for him--" She nodded sharply at Jim. "Good news: the slug didn't shatter. Tom West was a gentleman in that, if nothing else. Steel jacket on the bullet. Isaacs, though-- Leo told me that bastard was packing dum-dums. If he'd've been the one to shoot you, you'd've had chunks of lead every damn place. Lungs, spine, heart. Everywhere."

"Still hurts--"

"It ought to." Huelsmann laid her hand gently on Selena's left shoulder. "But you've been very lucky. I'm not the one to tell you if there'll be lasting damage to your arm or shoulder-- Dr Hoyser isn't, either-- but, roughly, things look good."

More confidence than concealment in her dark eyes: even from the realm of meds, Selena could see that. She smiled slightly, a little drowsily. "How long was I out?"

"Day and a bit, on and off," Jim said.

"The both of you." Huelsmann got up, split a basalt glance between the two of them. "Don't know which of you was stupider: you for falling in, or him for jumping in after you."

Selena looked at Jim as sharply as the morphine would permit. "You didn't--"

"What choice did I have--?"

"Forty-degree water with a bleeding head wound." Dr. Huelsmann raised her eyebrows at him. "Good thing you're too dimwitted to understand the concept of hypothermic shock."

"I think I resent--" Jim paused, looked appropriately blank. "I-- uh: yeah. Yes, I am."

"As I said, good thing." Huelsmann smiled at him. She looked toward the door. "Looks like your EMTs are here. I'll shift--"

She made room for Robbie and Laurel, approaching with smiles. Robbie leaned in and kissed Selena's forehead. "Hello, deadweight."

Selena smiled back, puzzled. "Pardon--?"

Laurel dropped without ceremony onto the cot. "Mr. Mouth-t'-Mouth here brought yeh back, Sleepin' Beauty."

"More like Bleeding Beauty, last we saw of you," Robbie said to Selena. He sat himself next to Laurel. "I must admit, though, Miss Urquhart's assistance in the resuscitation process was invaluable."

"Naw, it was you, Robert. Kept at it 'til he was blue in th' face." Laurel smiled the smile of a girl who didn't often give herself over to unfiltered, unbiased happiness. It lasted only a moment. The smile, that is. The happiness stayed in her dark eyes. She nudged Robbie wryly. "It's a good color on yeh, actually."

"Thank you, Robbie." Selena reached for him with her good hand; he rose and leaned closer, and she drew him in and kissed him gently on the mouth.

"You know, that's even nicer when you're not coughing up sea water." He licked his lips thoughtfully, looked across at Jim. "Any chance you'd--?"

"Sorry, mate. I'm th' shy one, I am." But he caught Robbie's hand. "Thank you."

"My pleasure." He squeezed Jim's fingers, let go. Then he smiled mischievously and looked at Laurel. "Y'know-- that's not half bad--"

"What?"

"Snogging a girl."

"An' yer lookin' at me why?" She caught herself. "Ah, Robert, no--"

"Could expand my worldview--"

"An' me just comfortable bein' yer verbally abusive an' dotin' fag-hag--" A pause. "Well, I'll give it a moment's thought. But don't yeh lose sleep waitin' on it." She got up, smacked his arm. "Let's get goin'. People need t' rest, y' know."

"Right, my darling." Robbie winked at Jim and Selena and linked arms with Laurel, heading out. "We're off, then."

"Aw, yeh fatuous bouquet, yeh." From the door, Laurel looked back at the wounded two. "Hannah'd be here-- just thought yeh should know-- only her an' sweetie-boy have a whole new whirlybird t' play with."

When they'd gone, Selena lay watching the empty door. For a moment or moments: a passing of time she marked but didn't measure with the lowering of her eyelids. The drugs were drawing her away; her body wasn't arguing.

"Yeh want t' sleep some more," Jim said softly.

"Yeah. Sorry: I'm--" She blinked at him, bits of focus falling away from her. She found his hand and held on. "There's room here. Stay with me, sweetheart."

"Can't, darlin'." He smiled, shook his head. "Can't be jostlin' yeh. Doctor's orders."

"It's alright, Jim." Dr. Huelsmann spoke in passing. " It's alright. Stay with her."

**XXXXXX **

Two days later--

Prayers on the helicopter pad. Virgil Cooper's white-shrouded body dropped into the sea, fell into the cold calm darkness, vanished.

Edie Irving had commandeered the galley. She had food waiting for them in the mess. Selena was up for the service, barely but stubbornly, holding on to Jim's arm. She'd noted again the stiffness in his back and right shoulder; she'd seen the bandages under his shirt. When they left the helicopter pad, wind pushing and chilling the air from the west, Hannah and Piotr carried their plates for them, back to sickbay.

**XXXXXX**

Leaving with the Western Star investigation ship might have been, for Brian Chaplin, a reasonable alternative to visiting the American embassy in Copenhagen. Only Mr. Chaplin had gone missing. Mr. Gregersen, standing the previous evening's watch in the brig, had seen nothing. Nor had the remainder of the _Puffin_'s men aboard the _Helvig._

**XXXXXX **

Leo Chaney and Tamara Huelsmann looked at the white star against the blue background of the investigation ship's hull and decided to catch a plane back to the States from Denmark.

"After we see th' sights," Chaney said.


	14. Letters from home: an ending

Caught on a rocky shoal of phrasing, Robbie might say--

Hannah looked out the window at the last of the mid-fall leaves fluttering in the wind, at the low burnt-gold hills west of the carriage house. She couldn't see Selena and Jim, even from up here on the second floor: off for a ramble, they were, neither of them easy enough in their still-healing skins for the jostles and jolts of long-distance running but getting tougher by the day. Their day off: jobs all 'round, in addition to wrangling the carriage house into decent shape and Hannah's having school, English-Danish bilingual classes for the kids of the U.K. refugee settlement in and about Copenhagen. Jim had found himself another courier job, of all things-- couldn't keep his butt off a bike for trying, Selena had said-- if he hadn't learned his lesson by then, he never would. She herself had gotten settled as a pill-sorter in a city hospital, and she was looking into starting up classes in behavioral psych at university. Jim, partly, perhaps, out of common sense, was turning his sights toward engineering-- if nothing else, he wanted to build bikes, better ones, he and a few other fellas, some from the settlement, some Danish pals they'd picked up, too. As for her, Hannah-- on this October afternoon, she was looking out the panes of a white-frame window and not at the cursor blinking on her e-mail screen.

Writing to the doctors.

Dr. Huelsmann had left her e-mail address when she and Leo had headed for the States-- and to new jobs with oil companies not having compass directions or astronomical bodies in their names. On Hannah's request, she'd been good enough to track down the name of the kindly shack doctor who'd examined Hannah and Selena and Jim at Infinity Base. Hannah was writing to Dr. Main now, on a Macintosh Pismo PowerBook that Robbie had "acquired" for them. It hadn't been theft, no: he was a dab hand with computers, it turned out, was Robbie, and someone had abandoned the machine at the repair shop in which he'd found work. "Soaked to the skin, poor thing," he'd said: the Pismo had sunk with a yacht, right to the bottom of Copenhagen Harbor, and he'd brought it back to life with a good drying out and a thorough cleaning, only to have its rich owners balk at the repair bill. So it went to the carriage house with the repair shop owner's and Robbie and Laurel's blessing, the latter two having already a computer of their own-- if, as yet, no permanent leads on either fair Vikings or Norse gods. Laurel was content, as far as Hannah could tell, with Robbie, even if the Scots sharpshooter and innkeeper extraordinaire would never admit it; she was content, also, to be, as she put it, "moving up the food chain" in a reputable hotel in town. Sights on management, maybe a place of her own. Sort of a "combat hospitality" view of things-- if they never went back to Preneen, that was. Or to England. But the all-clear had yet to come, and, well--

--this was home now, wasn't it?

She had ideas of her own, Hannah did. Helicopters: flying or repair. Or both, Dr. Main would say: why not? Maybe for a private firm. Maybe for the Royal Danish Navy. She'd have to see how her grades kept up. Mrs. Andersen-- Emily-- Aunt Emily, if not Auntie Em (both she and Laurel, Laurel's eternal store of culturally obsolescent media references intact, had vetoed that one)-- provided encouragement there. Selena and Jim, they were Hannah's guardians now, and she loved them, but they'd forever be more her big sister and big brother. It was good to have someone like a mum about. She was what Hannah's dad might have called a "handsome woman," Emily was, not beautiful but possessed of clean strong features and dark hair worn mid-length and brown eyes that seemed lit from inside. She was younger than Captain Andersen by some years, and, yes, she might indeed have worked for the secret service. Something poised about her, something a little mysterious. Something, maybe, about the way she could jump into discussions regarding naval materiel, ships and weapons and maneuvers and such, when Andersen and Piotr, down for a visit, forgot anyone else might be at the dinner table.

But the question at hand-- Hannah couldn't put it off forever-- all this pausing and thought and ignoring of cursors had come from a simple inquiry from Dr. Main, which Hannah had read out to Jim and Selena from the stairs as they put on their jackets an hour back:

"She wants t' know when she can deliver th' baby."

"What's that--?" Selena, lacing a boot.

"Says it's somethin' she's always wanted t' try. Midwifin'."

"Tell her he's not showing yet."

"Right--" Jim spoke, his head and shoulders out of sight as he pulled outerwear from the closet just inside the heavy front door. He leaned out, frowning. "Wait--"

"We discussed it, remember--?" -- as Selena moved on to boot number two: "You're going to have the first one and let me know how it feels. Lesson learned, sweetheart--"

Jim paused with his jacket half on. "Why I should never agree t' anything before, durin', or after sex, right--?"

"Mm hm."

Selena, chuckling, went out the door. Jim grinned and followed.

In the here and now, an hour later, Hannah considered. _You'll be waiting a bit on that baby business, Dr. Main,_ she typed.

**XXXXXX**

Just later than that, Jim stopped near the end of the day's hike and stood looking down from the autumn-browned rise to the west. The air was clear and cool, wood-scented. The lowering sun cast their shadows ahead of them, down the hill.

"What's that, then--?"

Selena halted beside him. Beyond and below them, on the gravel drive curving down from the main house, a big flatbed lorry was trundling to a halt before the rough white frontside of the carriage house. A tarped large something stood on the lorry's back.

"Looks like a wrecker," she said.

Doors opened on the lorry's cab; two men got out. One was considerably larger than the average fellow. "It's Piotr." Jim took her hand. "Let's go see--"

They went down the hill at an easy lope, neither of them tired or sore. Seeing them, Piotr left off untying the tarp and waved. Still odd it was, seeing him in other than his flight gear. He was wearing jeans, a brown-heather sweater. He smiled as they came crunching onto the gravel drive.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello, handsome." Selena leaned up, kissed his cheek. He blushed a bit.

Jim half-circled the lorry. The second man, a short square fellow in a blue-checked shirt, was unfastening guide chains at the corners of the bed. "What's this then, Piotr?"

"Here--" Piotr threw back the front of the tarp. "Is good, yes?"

Selena and Jim stared up. She nudged him, smiling. "Call Hannah--"

**XXXXXX**

A hydraulic groaning as the bed lowered, but no Hannah at the window, no Hannah at the door. She could get lost in her schoolwork, that girl. Jim leaned up the stairs: "Hannah, come on down!"

"Whazzit, Jim--?" She looked out from above, confused but not cross. Not knowing, either. Hadn't bothered looking out the window, obviously.

"Come down here." Jim smiled up at her and went back out. Behind him, Hannah's shoes thudded on the heavy wooden steps; she bumped up against him in the doorway; she gasped--

Guided by a chain at its forward axle, a homely black London cab rolled clear of the wrecker.

Hannah stared at it. She smiled, and her eyes filled with tears. She walked up to it and touched its left-hand fender. "How--?"

"I stole a helicopter," Piotr said softly. He went to stand beside her. "Stealing a cab was easy."

The fellow in the blue-checked shirt, the wrecker driver, finished coiling chains and re-folding the tarp. He asked Piotr as the empty wrecker bed cleared the ground: "Anything else, Kalinovich?"

"Thank you, Stefan: no."

"You owe me, then. Goodnight." He nodded 'round to Jim and Selena and Hannah; he got in the lorry and drove off.

Hannah still had her hand on the cab. "Will it run--?"

Piotr nodded. "They tell me it will, yes."

"Want to go for a drive--?"

"Certainly. Only--" He smiled at her, a little shyly. "I was wondering if you could-- you'll have to show me--"

"Show you--" Hannah grinned, incredulous. "You can fly a chopper, an' you can't drive a car--?"

"Yes-- no--" He shrugged hopelessly, grinning back. "No, I can't."

Hannah looked at Jim and Selena, her eyes bright and beseeching. Any sensible guardian would say no: the girl was-- what? Fifteen? The earliest end of sixteen? Years from a license and a guest in another country as well. Wanting to joyride, no less, in a vehicle that had been-- very kindly speaking-- "liberated" from what was as good as a war zone, a no-man's land. Looted, putting it bluntly. No ownership title, no insurance--

"Don't go far, Hannah," Jim said. "It'll be gettin' dark."

"Know where th' headlamps are, don't I?" Hannah smiled at them; she caught Piotr's eye and nodded at the passenger-side door. "Get in, yeah?"

**XXXXXX**

Tires crunching on gravel, a reliable, tough engine-rumble, a squared black back end and red taillights curving off and out of sight. At a decent speed, at least. Selena said, drily, watching, "We could be deported for this."

"But we won't be," Jim replied. The air above the western hills was glimmering with golden light, and his voice was optimistic in his ears.

She tried-- she tried to look troubled. But a smile touched the corners of her mouth. "I should have told her when to be home--"

"They'll come home when they get hungry." Jim took her hand. His thumb brushed the ring on her third finger. White gold. Plain band, nothing fancy. Matched his, it did. He tipped his head toward the warm interior of the carriage house. "C'mon, darlin'. Let's start dinner."

**THE END**


End file.
